Iran Supreme Leader Khameini's 'Hezbollah is the victor' gets brutally fact checked by Elon Musk's Community Notes

The world has certainly become more straightforward since Community Notes gained popularity. A recent incident involving Iran's Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, illustrates this point. He posted on X, formerly Twitter, stating, “Hezbollah is the victor.” This prompted several Community Notes contributors to challenge the claim, more so given Israel’s recent attacks against the terrorists organisation.
On Saturday, tech tycoon Elon Musk drew attention to a Community Note correcting Khamenei’s assertion, originally made on 25 September. The note highlighted that Khamenei had failed to acknowledge that “the entire Hezbollah leadership, including Nasrallah, has been eliminated.” Musk praised the correction, calling it a “Community Note Hall-of-Famer!”
After acquiring Twitter in early 2022, Musk bolstered the Community Notes initiative, which had been launched in 2021 under the name Birdwatch. He rebranded it as Community Notes in November 2022, expressing that it had “incredible potential for improving information accuracy.”
This system depends on volunteers who identify misleading posts and add contextual explanations. As noted on X, “Contributors are people like you. Anyone on X whose account meets the eligibility criteria can sign up to help.” These volunteers frequently include links to substantiate their points, as demonstrated when one contributor shared a news article confirming that Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had been killed in an Israeli airstrike on Friday.
In 2024, a series of Israeli airstrikes led to the deaths of several high-ranking Hezbollah leaders, significantly affecting the group's leadership. Among the most impactful losses was Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary-General of Hezbollah, who was killed in an airstrike in Beirut's southern suburbs in September, ending over three decades of leadership.




Additionally, Nabil Kaouk, the deputy head of Hezbollah’s Central Council and a prominent military commander, was killed in the same period. Ibrahim Kobeissi, who was responsible for leading Hezbollah's missile unit, also died, which weakened the group's missile capabilities.
Another key figure, Ibrahim Aqil, a senior commander of the elite Radwan Forces and a member of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, was killed alongside Ahmed Wahbi, who led special forces during the Gaza conflict. Earlier in July, Fuad Shukr, a well-known military leader, was killed, followed by Mohammed Nasser, who managed frontier operations, and Taleb Abdallah, a field commander for the central region of the southern border strip.
In addition to Hezbollah, other notable figures such as Hamas leaders Mohammed Deif, Ismail Haniyeh, and Saleh al-Arouri were killed in Israeli strikes, further intensifying tensions in the region. These targeted operations have cast uncertainty over the future strength and leadership of Hezbollah and its allies.