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| - A rumor circulating online in early 2025 claimed tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, the head of the new U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), helped a Starbucks barista — specifically a "cashier" — buy her daughter a gift.
For example, users' posts appearing in late January and early February on Facebook, Truth Social and X, featured the text, "Elon Musk Overhears a Starbucks Cashier Struggling to Buy a Gift for Her Daughter — What He Does Next Will Melt Your Heart!" The posts also included supposed pictures of Musk speaking with the cashier.
According to one account (archived) of the story, Musk entered a Starbucks coffee shop in Austin, Texas, where he overheard a cashier saying she couldn't afford to buy her daughter a bicycle. He engaged with the cashier and bought her daughter the gift. He further said he would finance her daughter's "future educational expenses."
However, our research concluded this story originated as fiction and included fake pictures generated by artificial-intelligence (AI) tools.
How the Musk-Starbucks story started
We performed a reverse-image search to find social media posts and websites displaying the fake photos of Musk engaging with the Starbucks cashier. We also searched Google for keywords in relation to the fictional story. All signs pointed to the Prime Hub YouTube channel publishing one of the earliest — if not the first — accounts of the tale.
On Dec. 2, 2024, a manager for the YouTube channel posted a video (archived) titled, "Elon Musk Stops Cold When He Hears Starbuck's Cashier Can't Afford Gift For Daughter & Does THIS."
The story's description read:
Elon Musk surprises everyone at a local Starbucks when he learns that a hardworking cashier is struggling to buy a gift for her daughter. What happens next will warm your heart and inspire kindness. Watch this incredible moment as the tech billionaire steps in to make a difference.
This touching story reminds us that compassion knows no boundaries. Don't miss it!
A disclaimer on the channel's main page read, "The stories shared on this channel are purely fictional and created exclusively for entertainment purposes. Any similarities to real events, individuals or circumstances are entirely coincidental and unintentional. These narratives are not meant to portray, reference or represent any actual occurrences, people or organizations."
The clip featured voice narration and editing generated with AI tools but also showed genuine photos and videos, including of Musk, Starbucks coffee shops and general stock media of other coffee shops. None of the pictures or videos depicted Musk at a Starbucks location.
A person using an AI tool created the fake thumbnail image of Musk speaking with the cashier, as evidenced by the slightly offset design of the Starbucks logo's eyes, nose and mouth, on the barista's apron (circled below), as well as the strange appearance of the fingers on her right hand (also circled). Issues with fingers stand as one of several signs someone generated a photo with AI.
The AI-voiced narrator said the interaction occurred at the Starbucks location on Congress Avenue in Austin. However, CBS Austin reported the only Starbucks location on Congress Avenue closed in August 2022.
The Prime Hub channel's video ended abruptly, before Musk intervened to help the cashier, perhaps due to a mistake by the person prompting an AI tool to create the video. The channel's managers also shared fictional stories in videos titled, "5-Year-Old Boy Whispers to Elon Musk in Starbucks - He Turns Pale & Quickly Calls 911!," and, "Elon Musk Walks Into Starbucks Full Of First Responders – What He Does Next Went Completely Viral!"
Social media posts gave Musk tale new life
Weeks after Prime Hub's early December 2024 video, in the days surrounding the second inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump — including with Musk's appointment to head DOGE — users on Facebook and other social media platforms shared several additional versions of the fictional story with new AI-generated photos.
One TikTok user pointed out the strange lettering in an AI-generated photo of Musk interacting with a cashier, appearing as "Barbuck" instead of Starbucks on the apron of a completely different barista. The French-language user also jokingly questioned how some users believed the story truly occurred.
One Reddit user commenting in the r/FacebookAIslop subreddit — a forum dedicated to discussing poorly generated AI pictures — also noted one version of the Musk story from the Entrepreneur Mindset Facebook page featured photos (archived) showing him wearing different clothing during the same interaction. "I like how Musk's shirt changes color from white to black, just like that," the user said. The pictures also depicted at least three completely different-appearing baristas helped by Musk.
A different post on the r/EnoughMuskSpam subreddit featured a commenter pointing out a mistake in the caption above a photo showing Musk interacting with a female cashier. The caption said, "Elon Musk stops when he hears the Starbucks cashier can't afford a gift for his daughter and does THIS..." The user's comment read, "Read the actual caption. She can't afford a gift for HIS daughter. Elon expects Starbucks baristas to give his daughter presents? Why do the clothes change colour from picture to picture? And it's not the same woman, it looks like. Or maybe those are someone else's giant hands in the last photo?"
For further reading, we previously published fact-check articles about other fictional stories involving Musk, including the rumor he rewarded a boy for helping his mother fix a flat tire on her Tesla Cybertruck, as well as other tales falsely claiming he reunited a lost little girl on a bus with her mother and shared a special interaction with a cafe waitress.
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