Fact check: No, Elon Musk did not tweet that the Earth is flat

Chris Mueller, USA TODAY
·2 min read
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The claim: Image shows Elon Musk tweeting that the Earth is flat

A March 11 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a screenshot of a tweet supposedly written by billionaire Elon Musk.

"The world is flat and I can't get past the firmament!" reads the purported tweet. "Anyone want to buy SpaceX."

The post was liked more than 700 times in five days.

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Our rating: Altered

There is no evidence Musk wrote such a tweet. It does not appear on Musk's verified Twitter account or in an archive of his deleted tweets. 

No evidence Musk tweeted 'the world is flat'

The screenshot in the post shows the tweet was supposedly posted from Musk's verified account, @elonmusk, shortly after 9 a.m. April 25, 2022.

However, a search of Musk's tweets returned no similar results, nor did a search of his archived tweets. A collection of Musk's deleted tweets also showed nothing that resembled the tweet in the post.

The font and alignment on the supposed tweet are also inconsistent with Twitter style.

March 2, 2023: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft lifts off from pad 39A for the Crew-6 mission at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
March 2, 2023: The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the company's Crew Dragon spacecraft lifts off from pad 39A for the Crew-6 mission at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

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SpaceX, which Musk founded in 2002, has launched rockets into space more than 200 times, according to the company's website, and has partnered with NASA.

Musk has jokingly referenced the debunked theory that the Earth is flat in a few past tweets.

USA TODAY has previously debunked other false claims about Musk, including that he announced a plan to buy Snapchat, that he wanted to shut down Twitter and that he suspended Bill Gates' Twitter account.

The social media user who shared the post could not be reached for comment.

PolitiFact, Reuters and Check Your Fact also debunked the claim.

Our fact-check sources:

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: No, Elon Musk did not tweet that the Earth is flat