LOS ANGELES _ SpaceX and Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk supported the call to #DeleteFacebook on Friday morning, and the Facebook pages of his two most prominent companies quickly disappeared.
Musk was not the first prominent name in technology to line up against Facebook in the wake of the widening Cambridge Analytica controversy. WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton _ who sold his messaging service to Facebook for $21.8 billion in 2014 _ encouraged users Tuesday to shut down their accounts.
"It is time. #deletefacebook," Acton wrote.
Musk responded to Acton's tweet Friday by asking: "What's Facebook?"
A Twitter user then urged Musk to delete SpaceX's Facebook page "if you're the man."
"I didn't realize there was one," Musk responded. "Will do."
The pages for SpaceX and Tesla were down by 9:45 a.m. Pacific.
Although SpaceX's website still listed a link to its Facebook account, the link led to an error page that said the content wasn't available. Tesla's Facebook page showed a similar error message.
Musk's Instagram account, however, has so far survived the purge. Instagram was acquired by Facebook in 2012. Musk tweeted Friday that Instagram was "probably ok" as long as it "stays fairly independent."
"I don't use FB (Facebook) & never have, so don't think I'm some kind of martyr or my companies are taking a huge blow," he tweeted. "Also, we don't advertise or pay for endorsements, so ... don't care."
Musk does have some connections to the social media giant. His fellow PayPal co-founder, Peter Thiel, sits on Facebook's board of directors.
And a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that exploded on a Florida launchpad in 2016 also destroyed a commercial communications satellite that SpaceX was set to launch. Facebook was going to use the satellite to provide internet access to remote areas.
When a Twitter user reminded Musk of that incident, he responded that it was "my fault for being an idiot."
"We did give them a free launch to make up for it and I think they had some insurance," Musk tweeted.
In an interview with the New York Times on Wednesday, Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged the #DeleteFacebook hashtag but said he hadn't seen a "meaningful number" of users delete their accounts just yet.
That could change with prominent Twitter users such as Musk, who has more than 20 million Twitter followers, promoting the message. Singer Cher said Monday that she deleted her Facebook account _ a move that was "very hard" because the social media giant had helped her with her charity, she tweeted.
Zuckerberg acknowledges the hashtag is a sign that users saw a "major trust issue."
"And whether people delete their app over it or just don't feel good about using Facebook, that's a big issue that I think we have a responsibility to rectify," Zuckerberg told the Times.
