IN SHORT: These nine Facebook pages use the name of X owner Elon Musk and make generous offers to Nigerians. But be warned, they may be out to scam you.
South Africa-born billionaire Elon Musk is the founder of SpaceX, the rocket and spacecraft company, and owner of the social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
He is often in the news for controversial comments and developments in his many businesses and personal life.
There are also many Facebook accounts impersonating the billionaire.
Africa Check found nine such pages: Elon musk foundation, Elon musk officially, Elon musk investment company, Elon musk private page, Elon Musk Private Chat, Elon Reeve Musk, Elon musk private page, Elon Musk official investment platform and Elon Reeves Musk Foundation.
But are the offers on these Facebook pages legit? We checked.
Fake investments
There are several signs that these pages are not legit. The first is that their posts are riddled with random capitalisation, odd punctuation and missing words.
We also noticed that all but one of these pages were created in 2023. This is suspicious. In a tweet in 2018, Musk said he doesn’t use Facebook. Africa Check has also previously found that Musk has not launched an investment platform.
The pages also promise free cars, large sums of money and “gifts”. Some even encourage Facebook users to grow their money through Musk’s supposed investment platform.
All signs point to scam pages with scam offers.
Africa Check has tackled false and misleading information about the billionaire here and here.
Protect yourself by reading our guide to Facebook scams and how to spot them.
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