The world's richest man and figurehead of the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Elon Musk, is at the center of claims alleging he helped save a 96-year-old woman's home after she was "forced to sell her house to real estate agents."
The claim circulated online in March 2025, as DOGE made headlines about plans for social security cuts. It made the rounds on social media, with users on platforms like Facebook (archived) and Threads (archived) touting the rumor as fact and celebrating Musk's apparent charity. The wide reach of the rumor led to multiple readers reaching out to Snopes about the claim.
The rumor that Elon Musk helped save an elderly woman's home is false. It appears to have originated with a video published on Dec. 8, 2024, to a YouTube channel called Story Rewind which publishes a variety of false, misleading or sensational stories. A search on Google (archived) surfaces the Story Rewind video alongside other false claims about Elon Musk. No credible news outlet reported on this claim.
The caption accompanying the video claimed that real estate developers bullied a widow and former foster parent named Margaret Turner into selling the longtime home she shared with her deceased husband.
The caption continued, "When Elon Musk, with plans to preserve historic homes, learns of her story, he steps in to offer her a lifeline. He promises to restore the home and protect it in perpetuity, allowing Margaret to remain until her final days. Musk's unexpected kindness grants Margaret the miracle she'd quietly prayed for."
Despite the alleged tear-jerking narrative, the video purporting the claim was at least partially created with the use of artificial intelligence (AI). When a portion of the video was uploaded to the AI detection platform Hive Moderation, it returned a 99.9% chance that the video was created using AI.
(Hive Moderation)
An AI-generated voice provided the narration for the video, and the images and footage used are a combination of AI-generated images, stock photos and images of real people used in a misleading context.
For example, around the four minute mark, the video purports to show a sepia-toned image that, coupled with the narration, suggests it's an authentic photograph of Turner and her late husband.
However, a simple reverse-image search of the image on TinEye reveals that this image originated as a stock photo captioned "Pensive girlfriend reading incoming notification on modern smartphone in boyfriend's hands sitting in café interior." The photo is available for purchase on stock photo depositories like Shutterstock.
Further, a reverse-image search of the alleged Margaret Turner reveals the photographs used in the video are actually those of a Scottish woman named Jessie Gallan.
The real woman behind the false rumor
The woman featured in the false story was Jessie Gallan, dubbed "Scotland's oldest woman" by the U.K. newspaper The Times in an article published Jan. 15, 2015, in which Gallan revealed the secret to her longevity.
Gallan's real story was a far cry from Margaret Turner's purported sentiment for her late husband. Gallan said, "My secret to a long life has been staying away from men. They are just more trouble than they are worth. I also made sure I got plenty of exercise, eat a nice warm bowl of porridge every morning and have never gotten married."
The cheeky quote garnered media attention at the time, with NPR, Business Insider, People magazine and The Daily Mail publishing stories about Gallan. Many of the authentic photos accompanying these articles are present in the YouTube video spreading the false rumor.
STV News, a Scottish news program, featured a segment with Gallan a year prior to her newsworthy quote. While the segment is no longer available on STV News' YouTube page, it is still viewable via the Internet Archive. In the video, Gallan is living her life at a care home around the time of her 108th birthday with staff members complimenting her wit.
Gallan passed away in March 2015 at the age of 109.
Snopes has investigated numerous claims about Elon Musk's alleged kind gestures that have proven to be false or fake, including Musk helping a Starbucks barista buy a gift for their daughter, helping reunite a lost 5-year-old and her mother, and rewarding a good Samaritan for fixing Musk's mother's flat tire.