logo
Fact Check: No evidence Musk invested $5M to build affordable housing for low-income families

Fact Check: No evidence Musk invested $5M to build affordable housing for low-income families

Yahoo31-03-2025

Claim:
Tech billionaire Elon Musk invested $5 million to build affordable housing for low-income families.
Rating:
In late March 2025, a rumor spread online that Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, had invested $5 million to build affordable housing for low-income families.
The story circulated weeks after The Associated Press reported that Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative had halted a $1 billion affordable housing program as part of cuts and freezes at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
One example of the claim, a March 27 Facebook post (archived), had around 37,000 reactions and 11,200 comments, many of which suggested the commenters believed the story was true. The text of that post read:
Elon Musk Spends $5 Million to Build Housing for Low-Income Families, Creating Sustainable Communities
Elon Musk has invested $5 million to build affordable housing for low-income families, aiming to provide safe and sustainable living conditions. The funds will support the construction of new homes in underserved areas, ensuring that families have access to affordable housing options. Musk's contribution reflects his commitment to addressing housing inequality and creating lasting impact in communities in need.
(Facebook page Daily News Feed)
Additional instances of the rumor appeared in other (archived) popular Facebook posts (archived) that, in the bodies of the posts or in comments, contained links to different websites hosting an article that claimed to share additional details about Musk's alleged investment.
Snopes readers searched our site and wrote in looking for information about the claim.
In short, there was no demonstrable evidence that Musk had invested $5 million to build affordable housing for low-income families. As a result, we've rated this claim false.
First, although the article some posts linked to claimed that Musk had "recently announced a $5 million investment to build affordable housing for low-income families," a Google search for the terms "Elon Musk," "$5 million," "low income" and "housing" found no coverage of such an announcement — which would have made headlines if it were true — in legitimate news outlets. Musk's official X account also showed no evidence that he had invested in low-income housing.
Furthermore, the article about the investment, which appeared on content-farm websites with generic names, was likely the product of artificial intelligence (AI) software. The AI text detectors GPTZero and ZeroGPT both found with high confidence that the text of the article was AI-generated.
The article included an image of Musk and a house with text reading, "$10,000 HOUSE." That image was the thumbnail of a YouTube video about Musk that misleadingly spliced together real footage of tiny houses from the modular home company Boxabl.
Musk has said that he owns a $50,000 version of the company's Casita house — which at the time of this writing cost between $60,000 and $70,000 according to the company's website — and that he uses it to host visitors. It was not immediately clear how much, if anything, Musk has invested in the company, although Boxabl has touted Musk's ownership of one of its products on its website and in multiple Securities and Exchange Commission filings.
Regardless of Musk's level of involvement in the company, there was no evidence Boxabl had built homes specifically for low-income families. Instead, as Business Insider reported in 2023, the company's highest-profile projects have been a Department of Defense contract to build Casitas at the Guantánamo Bay detention center and a deal to construct worker housing at an Arizona copper mine.
The claim about Musk investing in housing for low-income families was one of several positive — but fictional and seemingly AI-generated — stories about the billionaire that we investigated in early 2025, including a rumor that he paid the medical bills of a 7-year-old with a rare neurological disorder and also arranged for an experimental device produced by his company Neuralink to be implanted in the child's brain.
"Affordable Housing Threatened as Trump Halts $1 Billion Slated for Extending Life of Aging Buildings." AP News, 12 Mar. 2025, https://apnews.com/article/trump-doge-affordable-housing-preservation-crisis-de27d7846271779157550fcec0a78ea6.
Wazer, Caroline. "Don't Fall for This Story about Musk Paying Medical Bills, Arranging Neuralink Brain Implant for Sick Girl." Snopes, 26 Mar. 2025, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/girl-musk-medical-bills/.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Alphabet (GOOGL) Lands Surprise Win as OpenAI Picks Google Cloud for AI Expansion
Alphabet (GOOGL) Lands Surprise Win as OpenAI Picks Google Cloud for AI Expansion

Yahoo

time13 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Alphabet (GOOGL) Lands Surprise Win as OpenAI Picks Google Cloud for AI Expansion

Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) is one of the 10 AI Stocks on Wall Street's Radar. On June 10, Reuters reported that OpenAI is planning to add Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL)'s Google cloud service to meet its growing needs for computing capacity. Despite being competitors in the artificial intelligence space, the collaboration is a surprising highlight of the strategic need for companies to pool resources to accelerate AI adoption. According to the sources, the deal was under discussion for a few months and was finalized in May. The massive demand for computing to train and deploy AI models significantly reshapes competitive dynamics, highlighting OpenAI's latest efforts to diversify its compute sources beyond Microsoft. Google's cloud unit will now supply additional computing capacity to OpenAI's existing infrastructure for training and running its AI models, a major win for the company. Discussing the aforementioned deal, Scotiabank analysts have deemed the development to be 'somewhat surprising.' They pointed toward growth opportunities for Google's Cloud unit and also expressed caution regarding competition from ChatGPT. 'The deal … underscores the fact that the two are willing to overlook heavy competition between them to meet the massive computing demands. Ultimately, we view this as a big win for Google's cloud unit, but … there are continued worries that ChatGPT is becoming an incrementally larger threat to Google's search dominance.' While we acknowledge the potential of GOOGL as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: and Disclosure: None. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Musk regrets some of his Trump criticisms, says they 'went too far'
Musk regrets some of his Trump criticisms, says they 'went too far'

Yahoo

time15 minutes ago

  • Yahoo

Musk regrets some of his Trump criticisms, says they 'went too far'

Musk regrets some of his Trump criticisms, says they 'went too far' Elon Musk, the world's richest person and Donald Trump's former advisor, says he regretted some of his recent criticisms of the US president (Kevin Dietsch) (Kevin Dietsch/GETTY IMAGESvia AFP) Elon Musk, the world's richest person and Donald Trump's former advisor, said Wednesday he regretted some of his recent criticisms of the US president, after the pair's public falling-out last week. "I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far," Musk wrote on his social media platform X, in a message that was received favorably by the White House. Musk's expression of regret came just days after Trump threatened the tech billionaire with "serious consequences" if he sought to punish Republicans who vote for a controversial spending bill. Their blistering break-up -- largely carried out on social media before a riveted public since Thursday last week -- was ignited by Musk's harsh criticism of Trump's so-called "big, beautiful" spending bill, which is currently before Congress. ADVERTISEMENT Some lawmakers who were against the bill had called on Musk -- one of the Republican Party's biggest financial backers in last year's presidential election -- to fund primary challenges against Republicans who voted for the legislation. "He'll have to pay very serious consequences if he does that," Trump, who also branded Musk "disrespectful," told NBC News on Saturday, without specifying what those consequences would be. Trump also said he had "no" desire to repair his relationship with the South African-born Tesla and SpaceX chief, and that he has "no intention of speaking to him." But after Musk's expression of regret, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Trump was "appreciative," adding that "no efforts" had been made on a threat by Trump to end some of Musk's government contracts. "The president acknowledged the statement that Elon put out this morning, and he is appreciative of it," Leavitt said. ADVERTISEMENT According to the New York Times, Musk's message followed a phone call to Trump late on Monday night. Vice President JD Vance and Chief of Staff Susan Wiles had also been working with Musk on how to broker a truce with Trump, the report said. - 'Wish him well' - In his post on Wednesday, Musk did not specify which of his criticisms of Trump had gone "too far." The former allies had seemed to have cut ties amicably about two weeks ago, with Trump giving Musk a glowing send-off as he left his cost-cutting role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But their relationship cracked within days, with Musk describing the spending bill as an "abomination" that, if passed by Congress, could define Trump's second term in office. Trump hit back at Musk's comments in an Oval Office diatribe and from there the row detonated, leaving Washington stunned. ADVERTISEMENT Trump later said on his Truth Social platform that cutting billions of dollars in subsidies and contracts to Musk's companies would be the "easiest way" to save the US government money. US media have put the value of the contracts at $18 billion. With real political and economic risks to their falling out, both already appeared to inch back from the brink on Friday, with Trump telling reporters "I just wish him well," and Musk responding on X: "Likewise." Trump had spoken to NBC on Saturday after Musk deleted one of the explosive allegations he had made during their fallout, linking the president with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of sex trafficking. bur-arp/aha

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store