Elon Musk made a tweet that advanced false allegations about the attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, according to a New York Times report.

The tech billionaire on seeing the headlines denied the charge saying, “This is fake – I did *not* tweet out a link to The New York Times!”

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However, the NYT article goes on to say that Musk was replying to 2015 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton who accused Republicans of spreading “hate and deranged conspiracy theories” in a tweet. She said that was the reason that Paul Pelosi was attacked. Musk’s response was to share an article by the Santa Monica Observer, writing, “There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”

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The article alleged that Paul Pelosi was drunk and had gotten into a fight with a male prostitute. The tweet made by Elon Musk was soon deleted. 

A Los Angeles Times editorial from 2021 found that the Santa Monica Observer was owned by David Ganezer, a one time City Council Candidate and the paper was “notorious for publishing fake news.” The Observer in 2016 had noted that Hillary Clinton had died and a body double had been sent to debate Donald Trump in the presidential elections. 

Musk’s deleted tweet followed closely on the heels of an October 27 statement from the billionaire which was addressed to advertisers, saying that his newly acquired company and social media platform would not become a “free-for-all hellscape” that allowed for ‘anything goes’ styles of commentary. He added that “Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world.”

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The billionaire’s acquisition of Twitter after months of drama has led people to believe that the platform is likely to become plagued with hate speech. In an attempt to combat the notion, Musk announced the formation of the content moderation council, but has not made clear what exactly it will be doing.