By Daniel Dale
Photo: AFP/ Chip Somodevilla
Elon Musk has repeatedly misled the public about federal spending while playing a leading role in President Donald Trump's effort to cut that spending.
When Musk was asked earlier this month about one of the inaccurate statements he had promoted, he conceded that "some of the things that I say will be incorrect, and should be corrected." But "some" might be an understatement. The billionaire businessman has made or amplified numerous false or misleading assertions in the past month alone, largely on the X social media platform he owns.
Here are eight examples.
This list doesn't include erroneous cost-savings claims on the website of Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. And it doesn't include the many vague Musk assertions that he hasn't corroborated but that also can't be definitively debunked at this time.
The White House didn't respond to CNN requests for comment last week.
Promoting a phony video about USAID and celebrities
As the Trump administration worked to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Musk shared an X user's post that claimed "USAID spent your tax dollars to fund celebrity trips to Ukraine, all to boost Zelensky's popularity among Americans." The post included a video, made to look as though it was from entertainment outlet E! News, that listed large sums various celebrities were supposedly paid for visits to Ukraine.
The video was a fabrication.
E! News never ran any such video. USAID never made those payments to the celebrities.
Ben Stiller, one of the actors the phony video claimed had received millions from USAID to go to Ukraine, said he "completely self-funded" his trip and received "no funding from USAID."
Stiller attributed the "lies" to "Russian media," and experts said the video indeed had the hallmarks of a long-running Russian deception campaign.
Misrepresenting a Pentagon contract for defense against cyberattacks
Musk took ai
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