No, Elon Musk didn’t threaten to suspend X users ‘promoting propaganda’

Since taking ownership of X in October 2022, Elon Musk has threatened more than once to suspend accounts engaged in certain activities.

For example: accounts “doing engagement farming,” “doxxing real-time location info,” “engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying ‘parody,’” or “calling for genocide of any people.” 

But we found no evidence that Musk said, “Anyone caught promoting propaganda will be suspended from X.”

A purported screenshot of such an X post from Musk has nevertheless been spreading on social media, including in a Sept. 7 Threads post. The 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.)

The X post doesn’t appear on Musk’s account, and searching more broadly for the statement we found no credible news coverage that mentioned it or public statements from Musk expressing such a sentiment. We also found nothing to signal that Musk posted the threat and then deleted it.

A number of state-controlled media organizations disseminate information X, including accounts run by China, Russia and Iran. NewsGuard, which analyzes and rates how trustworthy different news sources are, noted in September 2023 that after Musk “removed labels from state-run, disinformation-spreading X accounts, engagement spiked.”Musk did recently post about propaganda. On Sept. 5, for example, he accused The Associated Press’ abbreviation of standing for “Associated Propaganda” in response to an AP story reporting the U.S. government claims right-wing influencers were duped to work for a covert Russian operation. 

There are a number of websites that let users generate mock screenshots of X posts, including from Musk. 

We rate claims Musk threatened to suspend accounts promoting propaganda False.