Is Elon Musk considering melting the Statue of Liberty to make Cybertrucks? Fake CNN article debunked

A rumor about Elon Musk considering melting the Statue of Liberty to make limited-edition Tesla Cyber Trucks has been going viral online. It started earlier this month when a screenshot of a CNN article titled "Elon Musk Considers Melting Down the Statue of Liberty To Make Series of Limited Edition Cyber Trucks" was circulated on social media.

The caption following a picture of the Statue in the article read:

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

However, the rumors have been proven to be false after a Reuters article published on December 11 clarified that no such article was published by CNN. The same was found when a search for the exact same headline conducted on CNN's website displayed no relevant results.

Emily Kuhn, a CNN spokesperson, told Reuters that the screenshot of CNN's Statue of Liberty headline was fabricated, adding: "CNN never reported or published that story."

The date and timestamp that was visible in the fabricated screenshot - November 25, 9:40 PM EST - point towards another CNN article about Elon Musk, which was titled "Elon Musk floats buying MSNBC, but he’s not the only billionaire who may be interested."

It is possible that someone might have taken a screenshot of the aforementioned article and altered it to change the title, the cover image, and the caption below it.

Reuters reported that the earliest iteration of the fabricated CNN article's screenshot was traced to a Reddit page called r/PoliticalHumor, where the image was posted by a user named @Scorpini83. The post also had a satire label attached to it.

---

Elon Musk's 1998 prediction about the internet's future has sparked online discussions

As the rumor of Elon Musk's intention to melt the Statue of Liberty is debunked, one of the Tesla CEO's older predictions has become the subject of interest. A TOI article published on December 12 reports that Musk had made a prediction about the internet back in 1998 which seemed far-fetched back then but appears to be accurate today.

The SpaceX CEO made the prediction in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, where he was asked about his thoughts on the future of the internet. He described it as a revolutionary platform, calling it the "superset of all media."

"The internet is the superset of all media. It is the be-all and end-all of media. One will see print, broadcast, arguably radio, essentially all media folding into the internet," Musk stated.

He further stated that it will change every form of traditional media.

And what the internet amounts to is it's the first two-way communication medium that is intelligent. It allows consumers to choose what they want to see, whether that be radio, print, TV, or broadcast. I think it's going to revolutionize all traditional media," he continued.

At the time of the interview, the internet had been accessible to the public for only seven years, which led to many listeners considering Elon Musk's statement to be "crazy" and "overly ambitious."

Per TOI, the businessman's vision might have been ahead of its time then but it has been proven true today. The video clip of his answer from the decades-old interview recently resurfaced on social media, sparking widespread discussion online.

The Neuralink founder himself shared the video on his X handle on December 10.

"The crazy thing is that they thought I was crazy for stating this super obvious prediction," Musk captioned the post.

---

According to recent estimates from Bloomberg News, Elon Musk's net worth has now exceeded $400 billion, making him the first person ever to achieve this milestone.