Elon Musk solved the ‘unsolvable’ problem at Harvard?

Social media is spreading the news that Mr. Elon Musk stunned an entire class at Harvard University by solving an “impossible” math problem in 2 minutes after being mocked by a professor.

Two photos in a post that look like AI-generated fakes show a class stunned as Elon Musk solves an “unsolvable” math problem after being called “rich but stupid” by a professor – Photo: SNOPES

This information was first posted on Facebook on May 27. The content of the article said that billionaire Elon Musk solved a difficult math problem within 2 minutes after being mocked by a professor as “rich but stupid”, with a picture showing the entire classroom stunned.

The post quickly attracted public attention, receiving more than 34,000 likes and more than 10,000 interactions and shares.

However, through verification by the Snopes verification organization , there is no authentic basis to show that the meeting between Mr. Musk and Harvard is real.

Search engines did not find any reputable sources reporting on the incident.

At the same time, the images accompanying the article were also identified as being created by AI. One of the two images contained the logo of Grok – an AI chatbot belonging to xAI Company owned by Mr. Musk himself.

The remaining image was judged by image detection tools like SightEngine and Hive Moderation to be highly likely to have been generated using AI.

The AI ​​chatbot Grok logo was spotted lurking in the bottom right corner of the photo – Photo: SNOPES

In addition to the image problem, the content of the post also contains many contradictory details. Although the first paragraph of the article introduces “A professor at Harvard mocks Elon Musk”, the next paragraph states that the person is Dr. Edward Kline – a 62-year-old calculus professor from Stanford University.

After looking it up, Snopes determined that this character apparently did not exist, as no one by this name was found on the faculty of either of the schools mentioned.

This information is said to be an exaggeration from a previous event in 2024. At that time, a Harvard economics professor, Mr. Jason Furman, said that Mr. Musk would “not be able to solve” the $2 trillion government budget cut when assigned to lead the US Government Efficiency (DOGE).

This original event was a matter of economics and public administration, not mathematics.

Previously, Snopes has also repeatedly refuted fake news related to Mr. Musk, such as him remotely shutting down Tesla cars owned by the Democratic Party, and not allowing Starlink to operate in South Africa for racial reasons. All without any real evidence.