OnlyFans: the viral hoax that turned Elon Musk into a crusader
The hoax claiming Elon Musk would buy OnlyFans to shut it down racked up 7.2 million views. Here's what's true and why a shutdown would be pointless.
English · Original discussion in Spanish · Published
The Musk and OnlyFans fake news that went around the world
Has Elon Musk become the scourge of the adult content industry? The short answer is no. The quote attributed to him announcing the purchase of OnlyFans in order to shut it down is a hoax born from a parody account. But the hoax was not harmless: it spread like wildfire, racked up 7.2 million views and peine a real debate over whether such a platform is a business that can be killed off with a stroke of a pen.
A parody with a marked date
The supposed statement was published on March 23, 2026 on the @DailyNoud account, known for its satires. The quote was made up: there was no press release, no business registry filing, no word from Musk. The hoax worked because it landed at a tense moment: that same day, news broke about a public figure, and the cropped screenshot removed the parody label. That's how fake news is manufactured: with a photo, a sentence and a context that stings.
Shutting down OnlyFans: the business that survives any buyout
The most widely cited economic analyses insist that buying and shutting down the platform would not eliminate the activity, but merely relocate it. Demand stays the same, and supply would move to a clone within days. Alternatives already exist, and past experiences with removing porn from mainstream platforms show the gap is filled immediately. At the time, accountants at major tech companies noted that adult content accounted for around 95% of the business of certain services. Close one door, and four open.
The uncomfortable conclusion: demand rules
The consensus is damning: as long as there are people willing to pay, there will be people willing to charge. Messianic gestures make for headlines, but the platform's economics rest on a foundation that doesn't dissolve with a tweet. Some analyses go further and suggest the real interest in such a buyout wouldn't be to shut anything down, but to get hold of the data of millions of users and tap into the goldmine of generative AI applied to that content. But that's another story.
In the end, the only winner from all this noise is the algorithm. A hoax with 7.2 million views proves that attention is priceless, but also that promises to save humanity are usually exactly that: promises. Humanity is still where it was, and so is OnlyFans. Someone will have to explain to Musk that, in business, you don't improvise a crusade with a tweet.
Has Elon Musk become the scourge of the adult content industry? The short answer is no. The quote attributed to him announcing the purchase of OnlyFans in order to shut it down is a hoax born from a parody account. But the hoax was not harmless: it spread like wildfire, racked up 7.2 million views and peine a real debate over whether such a platform is a business that can be killed off with a stroke of a pen.
A parody with a marked date
The supposed statement was published on March 23, 2026 on the @DailyNoud account, known for its satires. The quote was made up: there was no press release, no business registry filing, no word from Musk. The hoax worked because it landed at a tense moment: that same day, news broke about a public figure, and the cropped screenshot removed the parody label. That's how fake news is manufactured: with a photo, a sentence and a context that stings.
Shutting down OnlyFans: the business that survives any buyout
The most widely cited economic analyses insist that buying and shutting down the platform would not eliminate the activity, but merely relocate it. Demand stays the same, and supply would move to a clone within days. Alternatives already exist, and past experiences with removing porn from mainstream platforms show the gap is filled immediately. At the time, accountants at major tech companies noted that adult content accounted for around 95% of the business of certain services. Close one door, and four open.
The uncomfortable conclusion: demand rules
The consensus is damning: as long as there are people willing to pay, there will be people willing to charge. Messianic gestures make for headlines, but the platform's economics rest on a foundation that doesn't dissolve with a tweet. Some analyses go further and suggest the real interest in such a buyout wouldn't be to shut anything down, but to get hold of the data of millions of users and tap into the goldmine of generative AI applied to that content. But that's another story.
In the end, the only winner from all this noise is the algorithm. A hoax with 7.2 million views proves that attention is priceless, but also that promises to save humanity are usually exactly that: promises. Humanity is still where it was, and so is OnlyFans. Someone will have to explain to Musk that, in business, you don't improvise a crusade with a tweet.
Also available in: Deutsch
Summary of a discussion on Burbuja.info - Foro de economía, actualidad y política., translated from Spanish and reviewed before publication. Read the full discussion (72 replies).
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