Every six months or so, a rumor starts sweeping around the internet that the wealthiest person in the world, Elon Musk, intends to buy Fortnite purely so he can then delete it from existence. This rumor is not based on leaked information, it did not come from any reliable source, and it is certainly not true. It’s rooted in a meme created as a joke in October 2018.
Related: How does Fortnite make money? Answered
Is Elon Musk going to delete Fortnite?
On October 19, 2018, a Reddit user named The-shadowxz posted a screenshot of a MarketWatch news story headlined “Elon Musk buys Fortnite and deletes it” in the /r/funny subreddit. The name Mike Murphy appeared on the screenshot. Mike Murphy is a real MarketWatch contributor, but he did not write this story because the story never existed. The screenshot was created, presumably in Photoshop, as a joke.
It was quite a funny joke, though, and proved popular, gaining 11,000 points and 560 comments on Reddit in just three weeks. Its popularity was boosted significantly by Elon Musk, who, the day after it was first posted, played along with the joke on Twitter, posting the fake screenshot and commenting, “Had to been done ur welcome.” This response suggests that Musk agreed with the spirit of the quote used as a subheader on the fake article, “I had to save these kids from eternal virginity,” but it doesn’t mean he ever really said it.
Like all popular memes, the Elon Musk Fortnite meme spawned numerous imitations and variants, and it never really went away. It comes flying back every now and again, usually as a fan-panicking rumor, not as a joke. For example, during the Fornite Black Hole event of October 2019, during which all official Fortnite channels went mysteriously dark, many fans took this as a sign that Musk had bought and deleted Fortnite. Rest assured, he hasn’t, he isn’t about to, and he never will. Now, get back on that Battle Bus and have some fun.