Fact Check
In April 2022, shortly after it was announced that Tesla CEO Elon Musk was in the process of purchasing Twitter, the country music website SavingCountryMusic.com published an article stating that the billionaire had also purchased country music for $89 billion:
Elon Musk To Buy Country Music for $89 Billion. “Time to Fix It.”
In a groundbreaking development for one of America’s most long-standing cultural institutions, billionaire entrepreneur, inventor, and investor Elon Musk is purchasing country music for $89 billion in hopes of returning the genre to its past greatness.
This is not a genuine news item. This is a piece of satire.
While savingcountrymusic.com is not a satire website (they publish everything from album reviews to general news items related to country music), the author of this article made it abundantly clear that this was a work of fiction. As this disclaimer came in the article's closing paragraphs, however, some readers may have missed it.
The penultimate paragraph states: "Of course, this is all bullshit ... The real truth is country music unfortunately won’t have some benevolent billionaire benefactor swoop into to solve the genre’s problems via executive fiat, nor should country fans wait with bated breath for such an event to happen."
The article was also tagged with words "fake news."
A number of similar jokes have been made on social media. In fact, Musk has made some facetious claims himself, joking that he was going to buy Coca-Cola so that he could restore the drinks original cocaine-filled recipe (a longstanding rumor that has a bit of truth to it) and McDonald's so he could fix their ice cream machines.