It’s Back: Elon Musk Is Now Dabbling in The Pizzagate Conspiracy Theory

AP Photo/Michel Euler

Just when we thought “pizzagate” was relegated to the annals of bad memories from 2016, Elon Musk has brought the conspiracy theory back to life with a single tweet.

For the uninitiated, “pizzagate” was a wild conspiracy theory claiming that Bill and Hillary Clinton ran a pedophile ring in the basement of a Washington, D.C. restaurant called Cosmic Ping Pong Pizza. The story that began on 4Chan and spread throughout social media inspired protesters to threaten the restaurant and its workers. In December 2016, a 28-year old man used an assault-style weapon to fire three shots into the restaurant, later telling police he was there to investigate the “ring.” No one was injured, and the suspect was sentenced to four years in prison.

On Monday, Musk tweeted about a seemingly unrelated case about left-leaning news source Media Matters. Musk called the outlet “pure evil,” and threatened to sue over a story on X (formerly Twitter) advertisers.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald responded, “I think sometimes people forget that Media Matters was created, shaped and governed for a long time by David Brock, arguably the single most craven, deceitful and amoral scumbag DC politics has ever seen.”

Under that, another poster wrote: “Here is one that you didn’t know @elonmusk David Brock was the Boyfriend of James Alefantis, owner of Comet Ping Pong Pizza, yes the Pizzagate restaurant. Alefantis, a pizza shop owner at that time, was on GQ’s
50 Most Powerful People in DC list.

Musk responded simply, “Weird.”

Musk has supported conspiracy theorists before, including an unfounded anti-LGBTQ theory about the Paul Pelosi attack. Musk even started his own theory when he called the man who executed a successful Thai cave rescue of 12 boys, a “pedophile.”

Most recently Musk was skewered for agreeing with an anti-Semitic post.