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Elon Musk deletes Tesla and SpaceX Facebook pages after calls from privacy campaigners

Elon Musk has deleted the official Facebook pages for his SpaceX and Tesla brands amid concerns over the security of the social network.

The tech billionaire claimed he was unaware the pages even existed before he responded to a request on Twitter to deactivate them.

The Tesla CEO's very own Elon Musk page has also been removed in the act of digital cleansing, which comes as Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg faces questions over his handling of the Cambridge Analytica scandal .

The SpaceX and Tesla pages had more than 2.6m likes each before they were taken down.

Responding to a Twitter's user plea for him to delete his Facebook accounts, Musk tweeted: "What's Facebook?"

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Another user then intervened with: "Delete SpaceX page on Facebook if you're the man?"

Musk replied: "I didn't realise there was one. Will do."

Later, the billionaire said Tesla's Facebook page looked "lame", adding that Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, was "borderline" but his companies would continue to use it.

He said: "Instagram's probably ok imo [in my opinion], so long as it stays fairly independent.

"I don't use FB & never have, so don't think I'm some kind of martyr or my companies are taking a huge blow. Also, we don't advertise or pay for endorsements, so...don't care."

The #deletefacebook campaign has picked up support in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, in which information from millions of Facebook profiles was allegedly harvested by the UK political consultancy firm.

Facebook has seen $37bn (£26bn) wiped off its value over the claims, which are being investigated by the UK's Information Commissioner as well as European authorities.

Mr Zuckerberg said he was "open" to testifying before the US Congress after admitting it was "clearly a mistake" to trust Cambridge Analytica in 2015 when it said it would delete the data it had gained from Facebook.