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Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke March 9, 2023

No, Elon Musk isn’t poised to buy Facebook

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  • Elon Musk isn’t poised to buy Facebook. This claim appeared on a blog that published other false claims. 
 

Entrepreneur billionaire Elon Musk famously bought Twitter in 2022, but there’s no evidence that he’s poised to snap up Facebook in 2023. 

A WordPress blog called "WEVERYDAY" that describes itself as a "daily dose of wholesomeness" claims otherwise. 

"Just in: Elon Musk to acquire Facebook soon," the Feb. 22 post says. 

It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The blog post did not provide evidence for its claim. And Meta did not immediately respond to PolitiFact’s query about the claim. But we checked a similar one in December when an altered video made it seem as though Musk said he would buy Meta, a publicly traded company.

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We found no evidence then or now that Musk was expected to acquire Facebook or Meta. And although his acquisition of Twitter was widely reported, we found no news coverage suggesting a similar deal unfolding with Meta or its social media platforms.

Twitter was also a publicly traded company before Musk took it private in an acquisition that played out over months. He first made a bid to buy Twitter in April 2022, and Twitter shareholders approved it in September. The deal was finalized in October. Throughout, there was robust news coverage and commentary from both Musk and Twitter, including press releases and, of course, tweets. There are no such bread crumbs leading us to credible sources that corroborate the claim in this blog post. 

The blog itself features other false headlines alongside the unsourced story about Musk allegedly buying Facebook, including one claiming that he banned "The View" host Whoopi Goldberg from Twitter. In reality, she quit Twitter in November, a week after Musk took the helm.

We rate claims that Musk is set to buy Facebook soon False. 

 

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No, Elon Musk isn’t poised to buy Facebook

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