If you thought Elon Musk buying Twitter/X was bad enough – what with many commentators noting the social media platform’s influence on the recent US election and how it helped secure a victory for Donald Trump – then rumours are now circulating that the tech billionaire and Tesla founder has now bought out Ford.

So… did Ford get bought by Elon Musk?

On YouTube, a number of videos have claimed Musk has purchased the competitor, but these were published between last year and last month, suggesting there’s little truth to the claims.

One of the popular videos found after searching ‘Elon Musk Ford’ on the site is a 21-minute upload from the channel Elon Musk Rewind, posted on 17 September and with more than 603,000 views at the time of writing.

In it, the channel claims Musk said “I am officially buying Ford”, but does not point to a specific press conference or social media post where this comment – either verbatim or in another form – was made.

Indeed, the video’s description includes disclaimers which read: “This video discusses unverified information and theories from various sources. It’s intended for educational purposes and should not be taken as endorsed facts.

“This video contains information not to be considered the truth, rather theories and information found on the internet or broadcasted by news outlets and journalists.”

Elsewhere, a video by the channel Voyager – which has more than 503,000 subscribers – on 11 September saw it claim Musk made the aforementioned comment during a “surprise press conference”, but a quick search online shows no pick-up of such a press conference by any mainstream news outlet in recent months.

If anything, the Tesla owner has been far more occupied with his America PAC and voicing his support for Donald Trump in the US election.

The Ford-Tesla partnership

However, this is not to say that Elon Musk and Tesla have not already connected with Ford as a competitor, as back in May last year Ford announced its electric vehicle customers would be able to use more than 12,000 Tesla chargers across the US and Canada from early 2024.

“Tesla has led the industry in creating a large, reliable and efficient charging system and we are pleased to be able to join forces in a way that benefits customers and overall EV adoption,” Marin Gjaja, chief customer officer for Ford Model e, said in a statement at the time.

But even with these warm words, the companies very much remain separate entities.

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