A rumor circulated online in November 2025 claiming actor and comedian Adam Sandler gave a “fearless” speech on wealth to a room of billionaires, celebrities and executives — including tech founders Mark Zuckerburg and Elon Musk. According to the story, he received a “Lifetime Impact Award” at an awards ceremony in New York City and used the opportunity to speak directly to the billionaires allegedly present.
For example, on Nov. 4, Facebook user Melodic Comedy posted (archived) the story. The post displayed a picture of Sandler alongside Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook. The story began, “BREAKING: Adam Sandler ‘silences’ Mark Zuckerberg and other billionaires with one fearless truth — and then proves it with action.”
Other Facebook users also shared the same claim, and Snopes readers emailed us to ask whether it was true. The Melodic Comedy page — dedicated to sharing content related to Sandler — linked to a story on a website that appeared to exclusively produce AI-generated content. We reached out to the site seeking comment and will update this story if we receive a response.
A Google search of the keywords “Adam Sandler billionaires speech” primarily revealed results related to the post and claim in question; prominent news media outlets would have widely reported this rumor or any information about an event attended by Zuckerberg, Musk and others, if true. Because of this, we’ve rated this claim false.
(Google.com)
Whoever authored the story, using AI, fabricated the entire tale as one of hundreds of inspirational tales that depicted celebrities and athletes performing inspiring acts. They likely aimed to earn advertising revenue on websites linked from the aforementioned Facebook posts.
While the story about Sandler’s speech amounted to fiction, it was similar to a scene from his 2002 movie “Mr. Deeds,” in which Sandler’s character gave a speech to a room of wealthy businessmen, saying, “When you were kids, did you dream about becoming a savvy investor one day who would think with his wallet instead of his heart?”
There were also several visible indications of AI-generation in the story. For example, several letters appeared incorrect (such as “п” instead of “n”).
This story resembled glurge, which Dictionary.com defines as “stories, often sent by email, that are supposed to be true and uplifting, but which are often fabricated and sentimental.”
For further reading, Snopes previously reported on another story claiming Sandler testified against Sean “Diddy” Combs and another claim that Sandler would star in a live-action remake of “The Simpsons.”
