Did President-elect Donald Trump call Elon Musk a "two bit car salesman" in a post shared on Truth Social? No, that's not true: Lead Stories searched Trump's Truth Social account and found that he did not share such a post as of this publication. No information about this supposed post has been reported on the website of any news outlets indexed by Google News.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) published on Threads on December 21, 2024. It read:
I read this and laughed and laughed. This guy is actually going to be president again.
This is what the post looked like on Threads at the time of writing:
(Source: Threads screenshot taken on Mon Dec 23 16:17:27 2024 UTC)
The post purporting to be from Trump read:
The RADICAL LEFT FAKE NEWS MEDIA keeps saying that Elon Musk, a two bit car salesman is really the president! I WON THE ELECTION IN NUMBERS NOBODY HAS SEEN BEFORE IN THE HISTORY OF THE ENTIRE WORLD. NOT ELON. I HAVE THE MANDATES!! I HAVE THEM AND THEY ARE MINE NOT ELON'S!!! HELP!!!
HE CAME TO ME LIKE A DOG! IF IT WASN'T FOR YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT, ME!!! HE WOULD BE BACK IN SOUTH AFRICA PENILESS AND HIS MOTHER WOULD SAY VERY MEAN THINGS ABOUT HIM. VERY MEAN!! DJT
Trump named Musk the head of the proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in a statement published on November 12, 2024 (archived here).
Lead Stories searched (archived here) Trump's Truth Social account (archived here) and found no matching results for the message. An archived search of Trump's Truth Social account on the internet archiving website, Archive.today, saved on December 21, 2024, also did not show any such message.
A search (archived here) on Trump's Truth, a public archive of Donald Trump's communications on Truth Social, did not find any matches for the phrase "Elon Musk, a two bit car salesman."
Had Trump made such a statement about Musk, it would have been picked up by national and international news outlets. Lead Stories searched key phrases on Google News, including, "Donald Trump Elon Musk two-bit car salesman" (archived here). The search found no instances of Trump's supposed post being reported by credible news outlets.
Trump spoke at the Turning Point USA AmericaFest conference on December 22, 2024, about Musk's popularity, stating that he has heard the rumblings of Musk's influence. In this C-SPAN video of the event (archived here), beginning at the 1:02:39-mark, he said:
We will create the new Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk. And no, he's not taking the president. I like having smart people. You know, they're on a new kick. Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, all the different hoaxes.
And the new one is President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk. No, no. That's not happening. But Elon has done an amazing job. Isn't it nice to have smart people that we can rely on? Don't we want that? He's done a great job...
At the 1:05:10-mark of the C-SPAN video, Trump went on:
He's not going to be president, that I can tell you. And I'm safe, you know why? He can't be. He wasn't born in this country. But the fake news knows that. No, he's a great guy, and we want to have him.
Other Lead Stories fact checks on claims related to Donald Trump can be found here.
Lead Stories has also debunked claims related to Elon Musk, which can be found here.
