Musk spread discredited Pizzagate conspiracy meme

Elon Musk, owner of X, formerly Twitter, posted a viral meme pushing a new conspiracy related to Pizzagate, a previously debunked theory about child trafficking. But the meme’s claim isn’t true. Let’s look at the facts.

Quick Look

Yes
A false conspiracy theory alleging that a child sex trafficking ring operated out of Comet Ping Pong, a pizza shop in Washington, D.C., spread widely beginning in 2016.
Yes
Known as Pizzagate, the theory was a precursor to QAnon conspiracy theories and was widely debunked by many reputable, standards-based news and fact-checking organizations.
Yes
James Gordon Meek, a former longtime ABC News reporter, pleaded guilty to child pornography charges in July 2023.
No
Meek was not a “Pizzagate expert” and was not involved with the network’s investigations into the debunked conspiracy theory.
Yes
Musk deleted his post after widespread backlash.

The Takeaway

Purveyors of misinformation frequently fabricate claims to spread and support false narratives, or to draw well-established facts into question. Even when those claims are swiftly debunked, their underlying messages persist on social media and are repeated in new memes and posts. A piece of impostor content involving a fictional New York Post headline about Meeks, the “journalist who debunked Pizzagate,” being arrested for child pornography was debunked in August 2023, for example. But it was repurposed into a new meme and shared by Elon Musk, the owner of X — whose account also has the most followers (164.5 million) on the platform.

Disinformation often contains a seed of truth, which can lend it a veneer of plausibility and bring it attention in pursuit of some other agenda. In this case, an ABC News reporter was truly arrested for possessing and transporting child pornography. But this fact has no bearing on the provably false and implausible nature of the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. Remember, endorsements or provocations from high-profile public figures can’t change the facts.

The 5 Factors

We’ve determined that this viral rumor is misleading or false based on its failure to pass the following credibility factors. Please note that these factors do not represent degrees of falsehood. A post that fails a single factor is generally just as false as a post that fails all five.