No trace of Elon Musk tweeting about twisted logic with loans for young adults

An image making its rounds on social media shows a purported tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk lamenting the logic of letting an 18-year-old amass six figures of student debt but not allowing them to acquire a business loan.

“The fact that an 18 year old can’t take out a $10,000 business loan. But can take out a $100,000 student loan tells you everything you need to know,” reads an April 25 Facebook post showing the supposed tweet (poor grammar included).

The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

Musk has, on occasion, made national headlines for bizarre remarks on social media. Shortly after announcing a majority stake in Twitter, for example, Musk referred to himself as being in “goblin mode.” 

But PolitiFact found no evidence that Musk tweeted this comparison of restrictions for business loans and student loans for young adults. The purported tweet did not appear on Musk’s official Twitter, and we could not find an archived version. 

The Facebook post provided no defining information for the tweet, such as a date or a time stamp. 

Our search of the internet turned up another version of the quote that wasn’t attributed to Musk and used different loan figures. We found copies of it on Twitter going back to at least Feb. 8, 2021. 

Musk did tweet on Dec. 28, 2019, that he worked his way through college and ended up with around $100,000 in student debt.  But that’s not the same tweet that’s being circulated here.

We rate this claim False.

By

Yacob Reyes

Staff writer

April 29, 2022

Truth-o-meter Ruling

False

IF YOUR TIME IS SHORT

• PolitiFact found no evidence that Musk tweeted this. The purported tweet did not appear on Musk’s official Twitter, and we could not find an archived version of it either.

Statement

Elon Musk tweeted, “The fact that an 18 year old can't take out a $10,000 business loan” but “can take out a $100,000 student loan tells you everything you need to know.”

Context

a Facebook post

Speaker/Target

Speaker: Facebook posts

Statement Date

April 25, 2022