Did Elon Musk promise a "major shake-up" at MSNBC, vowing to fire host Joy Reid, as a social media post said? No, that's not true: This first appeared in an article on a website with a satire disclaimer that's known for publishing fabricated content. The post's caption also identifies its content as "RATED SATIRE."
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) by SpaceX Fanclub on Facebook November 28, 2024. The caption read:
Elon Musk Promises Major Shake-Up at MSNBC, Vows to Fire Joy Reid - Satire
This is how the post looked on Facebook at the time of this writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu Jan 23 14:55:39 2025 UTC)
Musk did not promise a "major shake-up" at MSNBC or vow to fire Reid. The image in the post has a clear label in the top left corner that reads, "RATED SATIRE" and the post's caption uses the word "satire."
The SpaceX Fanclub Facebook page is categorized on its "About" page as "Satire/Parody," and a disclaimer in its "Intro" section (archived here) states:
We post SATIRE; nothing on this page is real.
In the post's comments section was a link to a November 29, 2024, Esspots.com article (archived here) also titled "Elon Musk Promises Major Shake-Up at MSNBC, Vows to Fire Joy Reid." Under the headline are two gray tags marked "SATIRE," as shown in the screenshot below:
(Source: Esspots.com screenshot taken on Fri. Jan 24 17:54:39 2025 UTC)
The description on the "About Us" page (archived here) of the Esspots website, in part, reads:
Welcome to the US page of Esspots (A Subsidiary of SpaceXMania.com specializing in Satire and Parody News), your one-stop destination for satirical news and commentary about the United States of America.
SpaceXMania.com is also a satire website. Its About page states that its mission is:
To bring you the freshest fake news, some sassy analysis, and a good dose of satire, all rolled into one crazy concoction that orbits around Elon Musk and everything that's lighting up the viral/trending charts.
Lead Stories searched using keywords on Google News and found no credible documents or reporting to confirm this claim.
At the time this was written, Snopes had reviewed the same claim.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims involving SpaceX Mania can be read here. Lead Stories has looked into other claims mentioning Elon Musk, which can be read here. Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims mentioning Joy Reid can be read here.
