Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Elon Musk Romance Scam

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

An unidentified person or persons pretended to be Eon Musk and successfully pulled a romance scam on a Texas woman.

So Elon Musk is apparently having an affair with this 63-year-old woman. This story is wild. Now, the woman's name is Betsy, and like I said, she's 63 and she's living in Texas, and Betsy lives a regular life. She's a housewife and a mom. However, Betsy has a big problem. She's married to this guy, John, and they've been married for 43 years. But now John's 71, and Betsy started.

to think that maybe he's a little too old for her, and she decides that she doesn't want to watch him grow even older or be around when he dies one day. Instead, she wants to find a new man, someone younger and more exciting, someone who will give her lots of attention and get, you know, spicy in the bedroom. Then one day in 2025, she gets that chance, because Betsy's scrolling around on her phone on threads when she sees an online contest. And the winner of this contest will get a grand prize of a new Tesla cyber truck with $100,000 cash inside. And Elon Musk himself will deliver the truck to the winner's house. And Betsy's like, oh shit, I want that. And so she enters the contest. Now, she doesn't actually win the contest, of course. However, something crazy does happen. She's chilling at home one

and she gets a message, probably on threads. And the message is from Elon Musk himself. And he's like, Betsy, this is Elon Musk. I don't normally reach out like this, but there's something special about you. Then he starts messaging her romantic things, like he's flirting. And Betsy thinks he's kind of fine, so she starts flirting back. And soon they're messaging back and forth a lot, and eventually this develops into a full-blown online affair.

And Betsy loves all the... this new attention she's getting. And she makes no secret that she's having an online affair with Elon Musk. In fact, she'll text him right in front of her husband John. Like, she just rubs it in his face. Now eventually, as this relationship develops, Elon confesses his love for Betsy. And Betsy, she loves him right back.

But strangely, whenever she asks Elon to talk on the phone, he's always too busy. That's suspicious. But whatever, I guess. They're in love, I suppose. Okay, here's the thing about this Elon guy she's talking to. He's not really Elon Musk. This person is a scammer, and this is a romance scam.

And this may be obvious to like me and you and her husband John, but it's not obvious to Betsy. In fact, whenever her husband John tells her that she's talking to an imposter, she doesn't listen. And she just keeps this relationship going. And after a few months, inevitably, fake Elon starts hitting her up for money, telling her that he needs some cash to fund his projects or whatever. And yes, Betsy actually believes him. She believes that the richest man in the world, a man whose wealth grows by like $600 million a day, really needs her to loan him like $1,400.

Now, $1,400 is not a small amount of money, especially not to Betsy and John. In fact, she doesn't actually have it. So she starts selling all her things, including pawning all her jewelry to come up with the cash to send him. And to make it worse, Betsy even gives fake Elon direct access to her bank account, where he takes an extra $8,000 cash advance off her and John's joint credit card. Meanwhile, poor John is still supporting Betsy. He's cooking her dinner every night and trying to be the best husband that he can, be so that he can win her back. But ultimately, that doesn't help. Because eventually, Betsy drops

a bomb on him. She's filing for divorce. She's going to leave him for a guy pretending to be Elon Musk. A guy she's never even spoken on the phone to. And at this point, poor John, he doesn't know what to do. So he goes and he tells their son, this guy, Brian. So John, he tells him. So John, he tells him, he tells Brian and the two of them decide to stage an intervention. So Brian goes to his parents' house and he and John confront Betsy, and they try to get her to face reality. Brian's like, Mom, he's the richest man in the world. Of all the women on the earth, why would he choose you? And this, of course, pisses Betsy off, and she flips out and she starts yelling, You have no idea what you've just done.

Elon has satellites and he can aim them at the house and blow up your car. And Brian's like, Mom, you're a 63-year-old housewife. What do you have to offer him? And Betsy gets even more mad. And suddenly, pow, she punches Brian in the face. And then, pow, she punches John, too. And eventually, the police show up, and they intervene. And bam, they arrest her.

And they throw her in jail for the night. The next day, Brian gets a phone call. And the person on the phone says, After 19 years, they're back. Frankie Munes, Brian Cranston, and the rest of the family reunite in Malcolm in the middle, life's still unfair. After 10 years avoiding them how and lowest demand Malcolm be at their anniversary party, pulling him straight back into their chaos. Malcolm in the middle, life's still unfair.

A special four-part event, streaming April 10th on Hulu on Disney Plus. This is the sheriff's office. We just need the bail money and then we'll let your mom out of jail. Just zealous $3,400 right now. And Brian's like, okay, cool. and he sends the money via Zell. Then the person calls back, like, Okay, we got the money, but your mom also needs transportation.

So we need you to send us another $2,000. And Brian's like, that doesn't sound right. So he hangs up and he calls the sheriff's office directly, the actual sheriff's office, and he's like, do you guys charge a transportation fee? And they're like, uh, no. And that is when Brian realizes that he's just, fallen for a scam. Likely the same scammers behind the whole fake Elon thing, but we aren't actually sure. Now eventually, his mom, Betsy, comes home from jail. And like right away, she's a total

jerk to Brian. Like, I can't believe you were dumb enough to fall for a scam. And of course, Brian loses all credibility to her and he can't tell her anything about how to deal with scammers now. Okay, so around this point, Betsy announces that she's moving out. She says Elon Musk, is going to come to their house any day now and pick her up in his cyber truck and that she's going to go live with him. And so she finalizes the divorce and she starts packing up all her things. And of course, throughout all this, she's still sending fake Elon money. She even takes out a loan and gives him the money. And so at this point, Brian doesn't know what to do. Like he knows this is really serious and he can't stop his mom on his own. So he reaches out to this YouTube

channel called Catfished. And the guys on this channel, they appear to be a team who seeks out and catches online scammers just like the one Betsy and John are dealing with. And they appear to do good work, so, you know, shout out to them. But anyway, Brian asks them for help, and they agree to help him. Sometime later, the catfished team comes to Betsy and John's house, and they lay out concrete proof for Betsy that this fake Elon guy is a fraud. And they show her that they can actually track the real Elon Musk's jet,

and that he's really currently nearby in Texas. In fact, he's live right now on stage presenting at an annual shareholder meeting. And to prove that she's not talking to the real Elon Musk, they start texting with fake Elon from Betsy's phone. And Betsy can see the real Elon live on stage clearly not texting, while fake Elon is responding to her on. WhatsApp. But of course, Betsy doesn't believe it, and she continues to make excuses for him. So the catfish team shows her their IP tracker, and it shows that the fake Elon person she's

talking to is not in Texas where he claims to be. This person is actually messaging from Nigeria. Sorry, Nigeria. And that is when Betsy's world comes crashing down. And she finally realizes that she's been scammed. However, instead of apologizing to her husband, she blames the whole thing on him. She basically says all this happened because he wasn't giving her enough attention and that he was playing on his phone too much. And ultimately, after all that, Betsy is left with her marriage destroyed, her jewelry and money lost forever, and the fake Elon scammers get away with all of it.