The claim: Elon Musk agreed to purchase CNN for $3 billion

A Nov. 6 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows side-by-side images of the CNN logo and billionaire Elon Musk.

“Elon Musk Agrees to $3 Billion to Buy CNN,” reads the post’s caption. “Elon Musk Reportedly Eyeing CNN Acquisition: ‘I’ll Fix the Media, One Network at a Time.’”

It was shared more than 2,000 times in two days. Other versions of the post were shared hundreds of additional times.

Our rating: False

The claim originated as satire. There is no evidence that Musk has made an agreement to buy CNN for $3 billion.

Claim that Musk agreed to buy CNN started as satire

Musk, the world’s richest person, completed a deal to purchase Twitter, which he later renamed X, for $44 billion in October 2022. However, there is no evidence that Musk has agreed to acquire CNN for $3 billion, as the post claims.

The claim was posted on Facebook on Nov. 4 by a satirical account called Gridiron Glory, which labels itself as satire. The post links to a Nov. 4 article that repeats the claim but provides no evidence to support it. Musk hasn’t mentioned anything similar to the claim on his X account, nor has CNN, and there are no credible news reports of such an agreement.

The post is an example of what could be called “stolen satire,” where claims written as satire and presented that way originally are reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, as was the case here.

In April 2022, about six months before Musk took control of Twitter, Discovery completed a merger with WarnerMedia, forming Warner Bros. Discovery, which is now CNN’s parent company. Warner Bros. Discovery hasn’t announced any agreement involving Musk and CNN.