Fact check: Did CNN claim Elon Musk wants to melt Statue of Liberty to make limited-edition Cybertrucks?

BOCA CHICA, TEXAS: Elon Musk has been grabbing headlines since he endorsed Donald Trump for the presidential election. 

However, recently, a claim has been circulating online that CNN reported on the tech mogul considering melting down the Statue of Liberty to make a series of limited-edition Tesla Cybertrucks.

But is there any truth to this? Let's find out below. 

Claim: CNN reports Elon Musk is considering melting down Statue of Liberty to make Cybertrucks

A Bluesky user @hejintravels.bsky.social‬ posted a screenshot showing the CNN logo and a headline that read, "Elon Musk Considers Melting Down Statue of Liberty to Make Series of Limited Edition Cyber Trucks."

The photo accompanying the article, apparently written by Brian Stelter, the network's chief media analyst, showed the Statue of Liberty with the likeness of Donald Trump.

The caption read, "'Lady Liberty is French. There's nothing less American than that statue,' Musk was overheard saying at a Mar-a-Lago luncheon."

Fact check: The social media post was a satire

The post shared on Bluesky was a satire, according to fact-checking site Snopes. Moreover, the user said of the alleged screenshot, "Hard to decipher satire from reality these days."

Musk jokingly posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday, December 11, 2024, "No, I definitely melted it down 1,000%", along with a screenshot of a Reuters fact check debunking the rumor, which featured the headline, "Fact Check: CNN headline about Musk melting down the Statue of Liberty is fake."

CNN spokesperson Emily Kuhn told Reuters on December 3 that the screenshot with the Statue of Liberty headline is fabricated and that "CNN never reported or published that story".

The earliest version of the altered screenshot could be traced to a Reddit page, r/PoliticalHumor, where the user Scorpini_83 shared the image on November 30 with the caption, "This ain’t happening…"