Viral image
a Facebook post
stated on March 8, 2023 in an interview:

Video shows Elon Musk endorsing “an anti-aging remedy.”

False

That video is altered; Elon Musk isn’t endorsing an anti-aging remedy

In a recent video posted on Facebook, billionaire entrepreneur and Twitter owner Elon Musk appears to be hawking a supplement for hair loss and aging. 

“There’s this stuff called shilajit, I think, and it’s supposed to be an anti-aging remedy, a hair loss remedy, and the most powerful source of energy for our body,” Musk appears to say in the video. “I get mine from a company called Natural Rems — they are amazing.”

But Musk didn’t say this. The video was altered, and the post sharing it was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

The footage in the video comes from an April 2022 interview Musk gave while appearing at the TED2022 conference. He didn’t mention shilajit, a tarlike substance found in Himalayan mountain rocks that has been used in traditional, Eastern and Ayurvedic medicine in India and Nepal, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

A TikTok account promoting an app to alter videos “where you can make any celebrity say anything” includes other posts with the same footage of Musk appearing to say things that he didn’t. Among them: that Musk loves Angelina Jolie, that he’s “starting to sell the first tickets to Mars” and that Apple CEO Tim Cook “pissed me off.”   

 We rate claims that this is an authentic video of Musk False.

 
Our Sources

Facebook post, March 8, 2023

PolitiFact, Altered video appears to show Elon Musk saying he’ll buy Meta, Dec. 20, 2022

TikTok account, visited Dec. 20, 2022

TED, Elon Musk talks Twitter, Tesla and how his brain works — live at TED2022, April 14, 2022

TheStreet, Everything Elon Musk said at his TED Talk, April 15, 2022

Cleveland Clinic, What Is Fulvic Acid? And Is It Worth the Hype?, March 23, 2022