The proof is in the pudding: Elon Musk isn’t suspending users who post food pics on X

Some social media users claim X owner Elon Musk announced he would suspend accounts for posting food photos — but that claim is pure baloney.

"Elon Musk thinks that posting what you eat is worthy of a suspension," a Nov. 17 Threads post read. "At this point, I just don’t know what you can post on Twitter without getting suspended."

The Threads post featured a screenshot of what appeared to be a Nov. 17 X post from Musk. It read, "Accounts posting pictures of various food items including their own meals will be marked for engagement farming and automatically suspended." 

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

But the screenshot was digitally altered. Musk’s real X feed from Nov. 17 includes no such post.

 (Screenshot from Threads.)

The message banning food photos appears to have been tacked onto a screenshot of a real Nov. 17 X post from Musk. Both the doctored image and the real post share the same timestamp: 5:40 a.m. EST.

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stated on November 10, 2024 in a Threads post

Image shows U.S. Health and Human Services secretaries in the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration as of Nov. 11, 2024.

The real post isn’t about food at all. Musk was replying to a post about declining birth rates in Sweden and England. 

In April, Musk said on X that he intends to suspend accounts involved in engagement farming, a social media tactic in which users post content specifically designed to boost likes, shares and comments. That could include making politically polarizing posts to spark controversy or using popular meme formats to attract attention.

But Musk never classified food photos as engagement farming. The claim that he would suspend users for sharing pictures of their meals simply doesn’t cut the mustard.

We rate the Threads post False.