Did country music legend George Strait reject a $500 million deal from Elon Musk to endorse Tesla? No, that's not true: This is a fake story designed to get people to click on a link to a website. This identical fake story, with the same fake quote, keeps getting recycled with different celebrity names attached.
The fake story appeared in a post (archived here) where it was published on Aug. 23, 2025 as a ten-second video on Facebook by the page Kindness around us. The post was captioned:
BREAKING: George Strait Drops Bombshell by Rejecting Elon Musk's $500 Million Tesla Endorsement Deal -- "I Will NEVER Be Bought by Billionaires Like You; Country Music Is Not for Sale -- I Stand With the People Against Greed, Racism, and Corporate Exploitation." A $500 MILLION check from Elon Musk... REJECTED. Mick Jagger just made the boldest move in rock history. The King of Country Music turned down Tesla's half-billion-dollar offer, George Strait gave him just five short words in response...
👉 Read Full Story Here: https://musicnews.azontree.com/breaking-george-strait.../
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot of Kindness around us post on Facebook.)
The video contains a still image of side by side stock photos of Musk and Strait and a ten-second audio clip of the song "Boot Scootin' Boogie". The post caption and first comment includes a link to the website musicnews.azontree.com.
The article at musicnews.azontree.com begins with the fake George Strait quote included in the post's caption. The article also includes including fake congratulatory replies to Strait from other celebrities. One example is a tweet purportedly from Dolly Parton:
"That's why we love George. He's not just a legend -- he's a leader."
A search on X (archived here) shows no tweet like this on Parton's verified account (pictured below).
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot of search results on X)
A Google search (archived here) for a portion of the headline "Drops Bombshell by Rejecting Elon Musk's $500 Million Tesla Endorsement Deal", produced many results showing social media posts with the same scenario, but with different celebrities (pictured below). Search results showed no news reporting about this purported endorsement deal, but there was a fact check from Snopes (archived here) debunking an instance that used the name of Mick Jagger.
(Image Source: Lead Stories screenshot of Google search results.)
A search on Facebook for the phrase, "Rejecting Elon Musk's $500 Million Tesla Endorsement Deal" produced scores of copycat posts featuring music, television, Hollywood and sports celebrities. Some of the other people featured in this name-dropping clickbait formula are Andrea Bocelli, Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Stevie Nicks, Jamal Roberts, Jelly Roll, Blake Shelton, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Diamond, Tom Jones, Joan Baez, Kelly Clarkson, Alan Jackson, Josh Groban, Adam Lambert, Stephen Colbert, Robbie Williams, Shania Twain, Lainey Wilson, The Detroit Lions, The Colorado Buffaloes, The Los Angeles Dodgers, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and NASCAR driver Christopher Bell.
