Elon Musk on Tuesday amplified a photoshopped news article from the Atlantic that featured a fake, non-existent headline claiming “Trump is literally Hitler.”
“They are literally foaming at the mouth,” Musk commented.
While Musk himself may or may not have been trolling with the post, either way mocking liberal hysteria over former President Donald Trump, he replied in agreement to one commenter’s remark that “Nazis are socialists.”
The original post Musk amplified featured the fake image and a caption that read: “Completely insane story in The Atlantic today.”
In the comment section, the original poster admitted the image was satirical but added, “The Atlantic can only be lampooned this way because they are deranged.”
The fake image appears to be based on an actual report published Tuesday that claims Trump privately praised Hitler’s generals for their loyalty and said he needs “the kind of generals that Hitler had.” (A Trump spokesperson denied the report to the Atlantic.)
Musk’s amplification of the satirical post prompted a slew of mockery online.
“The guy who wants to teach young people critical thinking yet again falls for another fake story because it reinforces his own biases and the expectations they create,” ripped Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins.
“This is a fake story, dipshit,” dinged one critic.
“Once again, Mr. Musk, you have been bamboozled by a faked post,” wrote someone else. “That article is not real. Shouldn’t we expect the owner of this platform to at least do minimal checking?”
“How dumb and gullible are you?” questioned another commenter.
“Elon Musk can’t tell fact from fiction and is constantly bamboozled by fake articles,” commented another person.
The post has since been hit with a Community Note stating: “This is not a real article. No such article with this headline exists on theatlantic.com.”
In response to the note, one critic mocked: “Getting community noted by your platform for spreading misinformation is a nice $44 billion self own.”
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