What was claimed
Donald Trump called Elon Musk “mediocre”, said he is “constantly high on ketamine” and suggested he “go back to Africa” in a post on Truth Social.
Our verdict
There is no evidence this is a genuine post from the president and the White House says it is fake.
A screenshot supposedly showing a social media post from US President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account, saying “Elon Musk or ‘Mediocre Musk’ is constantly high on ketamine. Always making promises he can’t keep. NOT TO BE TRUSTED! He wants to go to Mars, how about you go back to Africa” has been shared widely on social media.
But there is no evidence the screenshot being shared shows a real post by Mr Trump and a White House spokesperson told AFP fact check that it is “fake”.
Earlier this month a very public row erupted between Mr Musk—who was born in South Africa but is a naturalised US citizen—and the US President, after the tech entrepreneur criticised a tax bill currently being considered by the US Senate.
The post in the screenshot has the date 5 June 2025, but Full Fact could not find any posts on President Trump’s Truth Social account shared on that date with this wording.
Likewise, ‘Trump’s Truth’, a website that archives Mr Trump’s posts on the social media site, does not include any posts with the phrase “mediocre Musk”.
Another clue that it isn’t genuine is that all the images Full Fact could find show exactly the same number of “Likes” and “ReTruths” (2,116 and 489) on the supposed post. If the post was real, you might expect more than one screengrab of it to have been taken and later shared online.
We recently fact checked another screenshot supposedly from Mr Trump’s Truth Social account, saying the president was ending dual citizenship. There was no evidence that post was real either.
Misleading claims online have the potential to harm individuals, groups and democratic processes and institutions. Online claims can spread fast and far, and are difficult to contain and correct.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because there is no evidence Donald Trump posted this on Truth Social.
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