Elon Musk is facing backlash after being publicly fact-checked during a livestream briefing about the ongoing California wildfires. While speaking with the command team managing the Palisades fire in Los Angeles, Musk questioned whether water was available in Malibu but not in the Palisades area to fight the fires. An emergency official quickly clarified, telling Musk that there was no water shortage, but the scale of the fire required significantly more water than could realistically be pumped.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom also wasted no time addressing Musk’s inaccuracies. Taking to X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday night, Newsom shared a clip of Musk’s livestream, pointing out the billionaire’s mistake.
“Our state faces one of the worst wildfire disasters in history, and spreading misinformation only makes things harder for the people risking their lives to protect us,” Newsom’s post implied.
Musk’s misstep comes as political pundits, particularly on the right, have attempted to assign blame for the wildfires to Democratic policies. Some have even made baseless claims that initiatives like “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) contributed to the disaster. Experts, however, say these arguments are both unfounded and unhelpful.
Greg Pierce, a water-resource expert at UCLA, told CNN last week that no water management system in the world could have fully prepared for the magnitude of the fires currently burning across the state. “I don’t know a water system in the world that is that prepared for this type of event,” Pierce stated, adding that the sheer scale of these wildfires makes it impossible to fight them with water alone.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Musk, Donald Trump, and conservative actor James Woods have all falsely claimed that reservoirs in California are empty. The state’s officials have debunked this misinformation, confirming that California’s water reservoirs are actually “brimming.”
Newsom’s response to Musk’s livestream adds to a growing effort to counter wildfire-related misinformation. Instead of offering tangible solutions or aid, critics argue that figures like Musk and Trump are using the disaster to push political narratives.
As California battles some of the largest and most destructive wildfires in its history, experts are urging the public to trust scientists, emergency officials, and verified information sources rather than relying on unsubstantiated claims.
