I decided to fact check. As far as I can tell, the initial stories were all based off of rumour and supposition, amplified by twitter (Elon specifically). I do see stories about the fallout, including a 100M defamation lawsuit. On the balance of probabilities, my factcheck concludes that it is likely a fabricated story.
Somewhere, in the back of my memory, I have recollection of an old school comedy sketch with a title like “foghorns in disguise”. Monty Python or Kids in the Hall or something similar. Wherein people would start a conversation with someone, only for that someone to respond by being a foghorn. But all attempts at googling this sketch has ends in total failure. I thought it might be the enshitification of Google search results, but I tried a few others too. Now I think I might have dreamed it.