Elon Musk, accompanied by his son X, stands near American President Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington. (Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images/AFP)
Elon Musk acknowledged earlier this week that a claim from the White House about $50 million in federal funding for condoms in Gaza was "perhaps not" based on actual facts.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in late January that President Donald Trump had blocked $50 million in funding for condoms intended for Gaza. The statement made global headlines but was later debunked by multiple media outlets.
"Some of the things I say will prove to be incorrect and should be corrected," said Musk, who was appointed by Donald Trump to head a commission on government efficiency, when a journalist told him that the condom affair for Gaza was erroneous. 'You know, we will make mistakes, but we will act quickly to correct them,' added the billionaire, who was in the Oval Office alongside the American president.
"Some of the things I say will prove to be incorrect and should be corrected," Musk said when a journalist pointed out the inaccuracy, speaking at the Oval Office alongside the president. "You know, we will make mistakes, but we will act quickly to correct them," added the billionaire, who was appointed by Trump to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk has removed all fact-checking efforts from X, his social media platform, including the verification notices that previously appeared under misleading or inaccurate posts. Republicans have argued that such practices amounted to censorship.
The White House and the State Department later defended the claim in front of skeptical journalists. However, global aid experts said the story was fabricated, and official figures showed that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided no funding for condoms anywhere in the Middle East from the 2021 to 2023 fiscal years.
According to the journalist who questioned Musk, fact-checking revealed that the condoms were not meant for Gaza, but for Mozambique, where a province is also named Gaza. However, it was later determined that the United States never allocated $50 million for condoms in Mozambique either. Some social media users believe the White House made this statement about condoms intended for the Palestinian territory of Gaza after being misled by federal records showing that a health project in Gaza (and in another province of Mozambique) received American funding of $84 million.
