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| - A rumor claiming the owner of a cafe fired a waitress from her job after she spoke out in defense of tech entrepreneur Elon Musk circulated widely online in late 2024. According to the story, a man named Mr. Smith — the alleged owner of a restaurant named Poppy's Cafe in an unidentified U.S. city and state — fired a Black server named Jada after she defended Musk in front of some of the establishment's impolite customers.
For example, on Nov. 15, 2024, the owner of a YouTube channel named Top Master uploaded a nearly 16-minute video (archived) with the title, "Black Waitress Is Fired For Helping Elon Musk, Next Day She Gets The Shock Of Her Life!" By Nov. 18, the clip had received over 2.4 million views and 56,000 likes. It featured a thumbnail image showing a Black waitress scanning a credit card and Musk seated in the foreground.
The video's description read as follows:
Jada, 28 years old and working at a small local cafe, felt like every day was the same, seeing the same people, and doing the same routines. But she genuinely loved her job. Then, one unexpected customer walked in and turned her world upside down, not once, but twice. Standing up for him cost Jada her job, but he made sure her loyalty didn't go unnoticed. The very next day, this mysterious man changed her life in a way she never saw coming. So, who was he, and what happened after that unforgettable encounter?
A search for more information about this rumor produced numerous results for similar videos on TikTok and YouTube. Users also posted the story of Musk and the firing of a Black waitress on Facebook, Threads and X.
However, the rumor claiming the owner of a restaurant named Poppy's Cafe fired a Black waitress for helping Musk was false. We located no news reports or other credible information confirming any such incident. The Top Master YouTube channel displayed no disclaimers about its content not being true, nor did it show any contact information or associated websites. With a creation date of Aug. 29, 2024, the Top Master YouTube channel, despite having no disclaimers about fictional content and displaying no contact information, exists to share videos with made-up stories and enticing thumbnail images in order to earn its owner or owners advertising revenue.
Examples of other false stories shared by the Top Master YouTube channel includes videos claiming Musk performed acts of kindness after walking inside locations for McDonald's, Taco Bell and Chipotle. The owner of the YouTube channel picked those three restaurant chains because of their familiarity to viewers, and chose Musk as the focus of the clips not only because his name and image are so familiar, but because of the likelihood they would to attract clicks.
One YouTube commenter under the Top Master video remarked, "Jada is brave true American. This is what America stand [sic] for. A stand for truth fairness." Another user said, "God bless Elon Musk for his humbleness and kindness towards human beings. Jada did the right thing." One person also added, "Only in America, can you be serving coffee one day and working for Elon Musk the next." Each of these comments displayed hundreds or thousands of likes — a sign that, along with the number of likes for the video itself, many of those viewers believed the video told a true story.
One user on X also posted (archived) a link to the Top Master YouTube video, adding that Democratic Party-aligned voters "hating Elon Musk (MSNBC & CNN) need to watch this and learn something about dealing with people with kindness and respect." The user added, "Many of you are about to be fired." The end of the user's comment pertained to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's recent reelection victory.
Videos Contained AI Elements
The people who created the Top Master YouTube video and other videos sharing the fictional story about Musk and the Black waitress hosted on TikTok and YouTube used artificial-intelligence (AI) tools to generate fake thumbnail images and audio narration, and to even manage the clip selection and editing. Those users simply entered a text prompt as an order to the generative-AI tools to make the videos and thumbnail images.
For further reading, we reported about a false rumor claiming Musk spotted a 5-year-old girl on a city bus, reunited her with her mother and bought their family a house. We also published information about a false rumor claiming Musk said, "I am officially buying McDonald's."
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