There was no confirmation of the speculation from any credible news source. In the fifth month of 2025, Jamal Roberts, the victor of ‘American Idol’ Season 23, was said to have rejected a promotional proposition from technology magnate, Elon Musk. This unverified narrative originated in May 2025, when information began disseminating through social media channels suggesting Roberts, the newly-crowned champion of ‘American Idol’s’ 23rd season, declined a promotional pitch for Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle firm.
The information lacked any solid evidence to substantiate it, making the claim inherently false. Following the season finale of the popular talent show aired on May 18th, which had Roberts declared as the winner, posts related to this unfounded allegation began to surface. In an attempt at seeming genuine, these posts referred to purported news articles that reported similar information.
However, the referenced articles were found on websites that fall far short of critical reliability standards. These articles featured odd headline choices and unconventional typography. For example, a headline starting with ‘HOLY SHOCKWAVES’ would hardly be considered commonplace for a serious news piece.
Yet another website exhibited peculiar typography by replacing the Latin ‘n’ and ‘u’ with characters from other writing systems, namely the Cyrillic ‘?’ and the Greek ‘?’. Despite these apparent inconsistencies, none of these articles provided any trustworthy sources that could affirm the claim of Roberts turning down an advertising deal from Tesla or Musk.
With the claim’s underlying premise being fundamentally false, the narrative concerning Roberts and Musk could nonetheless appear plausible to some, due to Roberts’ recent rise to fame combined with the recent challenges faced by Tesla. Sometimes, introducing a slight essence of truth can indeed package baseless celebrity rumors or speculations more convincingly, attracting reactions from a broader audience as a result.
Such pseudo-news might thereby invite hundreds, if not thousands, of interactions from social media users. The manner in which these messages were interpreted by a segment of the audience shows a willingness to accept these videos as legitimate news pieces.
In creating this misinformation, the structure of the false claim appeared to follow a specific strategy commonly seen in Facebook posts. One particular site spreading the rumor provided a bogus physical address of its operation, supposedly located at 1234 Broad St., Arlington, Virginia.
In similar fashion, another website subtly revealed in its terms of service that its actual base of operations was situated in Vietnam. The strategy behind delivering this misinformation was to give it an appearance of sourced locally while operating from an entirely different geographical location.
Interestingly, this wasn’t the first instance where rumors surrounding Tesla’s advertisements managed to generate significant attention from social media users. One can consider this a pattern, as there has been previous instances of similar unverified claims.
To take an example, baseless assertions concerning the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Green Bay Packers rejecting advertising propositions from Tesla have been debunked in the past. The root of those unsubstantiated claims was found to be strikingly similar to the current case revolving around Roberts.