An ICE tip line was not paused because of reports about Elon Musk. The claim started as satire.
Entrepreneur and South African native Elon Musk immigrated to the United States as a student in 1992 and became a U.S. citizen a decade later.
But with the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign underway, social media users are spreading a rumor that so many people are reporting Musk’s immigration status to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that the agency was forced to shut down its tip line.
“ICE just announced it is pausing the hotline where people can call to report undocumented immigrants because 90% of the calls are from people reporting Elon Musk,” one such Threads post said.
The Jan. 29 post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)
Immigration and Customs Enforcement didn’t immediately respond to PolitiFact’s questions about the post.
But this claim originated on a satirical X account called The Halfway Post, which describes itself as posting “halfway true comedy and satire.”
“BREAKING,” its Jan. 28 post said. “ICE just announced it is pausing the hotline where people can call to report undocumented immigrants because 90% of the calls are from people reporting Elon Musk.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a tip line to “report suspicious criminal activity” including illegal immigration. We previously fact-checked and found false claims that ICE was paying tipsters $750 for “each illegal immigrant” they turned in.
When we called the tip line Jan. 31, a recorded message said that the tip line was “currently experiencing a higher call volume than normal” and asked callers to submit tips online instead.
We found no evidence, such as credible news reports or public statements, that this was because of reports about Musk’s immigration status.
We rate claims ICE announced it was pausing its tip line because most of the calls were from people reporting Musk False.
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here.
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