Elon Musk is believed to have deleted a post he shared on X, the social media platform he owns, which included an image falsely claiming Sir Keir Starmer was considering building emergency detainment camps.

The image included the headline of a fake article which said “Keir Starmer considering building ’emergency detainment camps’ on the Falkland Islands“, mocked up in the style of the Daily Telegraph website.

The byline of the fake article clearly linked the made-up piece of news to the riots that have been raging across the country over the past week, as it read: “The camps would be used to detain prisoners from the ongoing riots as the British prison system is already at capacity”.

Mr Musk reportedly shared the image by reposting a message by Ashlea Simon, the co-leader of the far right Britain First party. Ms Simon had commented on the image, which had already appeared elsewhere before she shared it, writing: “We’re all being deported to the Falklands”.

Mr Musk also reportedly commented on the image by writing: “Detainment camps…”. The tech billionaire shared his post during the morning of August 8.

Politics.co.uk’s editor Josh Self claimed on X that Mr Musk’s message had disappeared more than 30 minutes after being first shared. By then, it had recorded some 1.8 million views, 2,800 comments and 3,700 reposts.

Ms Simon’s post was also removed, and the far right party leader appeared to acknowledge she had shared a piece of fake news, as she posted later in the morning without referencing the image: “If I find out a post is fake (it happens). I delete it.”

The “community notes” feature on the social media platform, which allows X users to flag content they believe may be false, was triggered under Ms Simon’s post several hours after it had been posted, informing readers the story shown in the image did not exist.

The owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, hasn’t yet publicly acknowledged whether he shared and deleted Ms Simon’s post.

Express.co.uk has contacted X for comment.

The Telegraph stressed it never published a similar article on detainment camps on the Falklands, saying in a statement on X: “The Telegraph is aware of an image circulating on X which purports to be a Telegraph article about ’emergency detainment camps’. No such article has ever been published by the Telegraph.”

A spokesperson for the Telegraph Media Group also said: “This is a fabricated headline for an article that does not exist. We notified relevant platforms and requested that the post be taken down.”

This comes after the tech billionaire made a series of controversial remarks on the unrest and violence that spread across several British towns and cities in the wake of the killing of three children in Southport on July 29 – and was even embroiled in a war of words with the UK Prime Minister.