TL;DR
- The viral quote attributed to Musk about buying OnlyFans came from @DailyNoud, a well-known parody account on X, not from Musk himself.
- OnlyFans was in talks valued at around $5.5 billion — not $18 billion — before owner Leonid Radvinsky died on March 20, 2026.
- Musk has issued no statement, made no bid, and Polymarket puts the odds of him actually buying OnlyFans at 4%.
On March 23, 2026, a post appeared on X claiming Elon Musk had expressed interest in buying OnlyFans and shutting it down. “Yeah, I’ll do it. I don’t see why not,” the quote read. Within hours it had 7.2 million views and over 80,000 likes. It spread across Instagram, TikTok, and every group chat that enjoys a little chaos.
There is one problem. Musk never said it. The post came from @DailyNoud, a parody account on X with a history of posting fabricated and satirical quotes attributed to public figures. No press release. No SEC filing. No interview. A fake quote from a fake account, spreading at real speed.
The Elon Musk buying OnlyFans rumor: where it actually started
The timing is what gave it legs. Radvinsky’s death was announced that same day, March 23. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who purchased OnlyFans parent company Fenix International in 2018, died on March 20 at 43 after a long battle with cancer he had kept private. He died at his home in Florida and was worth an estimated $4.7 billion at the time of his death.
The combination of a sudden billionaire death, a platform that makes the internet argue, and a Musk quote that felt just plausible enough was, functionally, a misinformation starter kit. People who wanted it to be true shared it approvingly. People who didn’t want it to be true shared it in outrage. The account’s parody label got lost in translation both ways.
The $18 billion figure that spread alongside the rumor is also fabricated. Real negotiations over an OnlyFans sale were nowhere near that number. Architect Capital entered exclusive talks in January to acquire a 60% stake in the company. The deal structure, as reported by Axios, put the equity value at roughly $3.5 billion with approximately $2 billion in debt, for a total enterprise value around $5.5 billion. An earlier Variety report from 2025 had cited an $8 billion figure from preliminary talks. The $18 billion number has no verifiable origin in any reported deal, term sheet, or credible source.
What is actually happening to OnlyFans now
The real question the death raises is about succession and what happens to the sale process. Radvinsky’s shares in Fenix International had been held in the LR Fenix Trust since 2024. His wife and family are expected to play a role in future decisions, but the full succession picture remains unclear. The company has not commented on the status of the Architect Capital talks or whether new ownership changes the terms.
OnlyFans generated $7.22 billion in gross revenue in fiscal year 2024 and a pre-tax profit of $684 million. It is a profitable, structurally sound business being sold by an estate, not a distressed asset in need of a savior buyer. The suggestion that Musk would pay a wildly inflated premium just to shut it down would require a buyer willing to destroy roughly $700 million in annual profit for ideological reasons. That is a different kind of business decision than anything in Musk’s documented acquisition history.
For context, Musk is currently managing the fallout from xAI losing all 11 of its original cofounders while preparing SpaceX for what could be the largest IPO in history. The idea that he is quietly lining up a separate multi-billion dollar acquisition of an adult content platform to dismantle it is not supported by anything in the public record.
Prediction market Polymarket currently prices the probability of Musk buying OnlyFans at 4%. That is the market’s way of saying it is theoretically possible but close to noise.
Why this kind of rumor spreads so fast
The @DailyNoud post is a useful case study in how platform mechanics interact with motivated reasoning. The account’s parody status is visible on its profile, but that information does not travel with the screenshot. Once the quote was cropped and reshared as an image, it stripped the context entirely. What remained was a single bold claim attached to a recognizable name, timed to a genuinely real and emotionally resonant news event.
Every element was calibrated, whether intentionally or not, to hit the algorithmic sweet spots: celebrity involvement, a taboo platform, a death, and a morally satisfying outcome for two very different audiences. People who want OnlyFans gone celebrated. People who think Musk overreaches into everything were horrified. Both groups shared the post. Neither verified the source.
OnlyFans released a brief statement after Radvinsky’s death saying the company was “deeply saddened” and asking for privacy for his family. It said nothing about a sale, a transition plan, or any prospective buyer. The platform is still operating. No acquisition has been announced. The rumor, as of publication, remains entirely unsupported by any evidence beyond a tweet from an account that makes things up for a living.
