Fact Check

Elon Musk Called 'Mediocre White Man' by theGrio Columnist?

Social media users were asking whether an op-ed about the billionaire was real.

by Nick Hardinges, Published March 21, 2024


Image courtesy of Yahoo News


Claim:
An X user posted a screenshot of a legitimate news opinion column in March 2024 that referred to Elon Musk as a "mediocre white man."
Rating:
True

About this rating


On March 21, 2024, the X account @EndWokeness uploaded a screenshot purportedly showing the headline of a theGrio opinion column, which was syndicated on Yahoo News, that called X owner Elon Musk a "mediocre white man" (archived here).

The screengrab allegedly showed columnist Michael Harriot wrote the article. It contained a picture of Elon Musk during a March 18 interview with former CNN host Don Lemon. The headline read:

Don Lemon interviewed a mediocre white man

Other X users replied to the post asking whether the article was real, while some were certain it was not.

Is this real

— Connie Caston (@ConnieCaston) March 21, 2024

However, the opinion piece was real and was originally published by theGrio, and so we have rated this "True." It was published on March 20, 2024.

An editor's note at the top of the article expressed how the article was an opinion column, and that the views expressed in it were the author's own.


By Nick Hardinges

Nick Hardinges is a London-based reporter who previously worked as a fact-checker at Reuters.


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