In an X post that went viral Sunday, Elon Musk said he “felt like I was dying” and almost went to the hospital after taking his second COVID-19 vaccine. Musk was responding to an X post about how Dr. Helmut Sterz, Pfizer’s former chief toxicologist, admitted during a German COVID-19 inquiry that an estimated 60,000 Germans died from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
In an X post that went viral Sunday, Elon Musk said he “felt like I was dying” and almost went to the hospital after taking his second COVID-19 vaccine.
Musk was responding to an X post about how Dr. Helmut Sterz, Pfizer’s former chief toxicologist, admitted last month during a German COVID-19 Inquiry that an estimated 60,000 people have died in Germany from Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, Comirnaty.
The vaccine dosage was obviously too high and done too many times.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 12, 2026
I had the original Wuhan virus before there was any vaccine and it was much like any other cold/flu. Bad, but not terrible.
But my second vaccine shot almost sent me to the hospital. Felt like I was dying. https://t.co/rFuUpzBkKH
According to Sterz, the Paul Ehrlich Institute, Germany’s regulatory and research institute for vaccines and biomedicines, has received 2,133 reports of death following Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
He said, “These spontaneous reports likely have a high number of unreported cases due to underreporting. The true number is therefore much higher.”
“In the U.S., it is assumed that there is an underreporting factor of 30 by which the registered cases would have to be multiplied. For Germany, this would correspond to 60,000 deaths from the vaccination,” Sterz said.
Sterz told the German commissioners that Pfizer’s post-marketing report mentioned 1,200 suspected deaths within just two months of the shot’s approval.
“At that point, Comirnaty should have been withdrawn from the market,” Sterz said.
Pfizer skipped key safety studies due to ‘time constraints’
Sterz also testified that “due to time constraints,” Pfizer didn’t conduct vital safety checks on its COVID-19 vaccine before rolling it out to the public. For instance, the vaccine maker skipped carcinogenicity studies that would have examined whether the shots had cancer-causing properties.
Pfizer also failed to study the vaccine’s impact on pregnancy.
Sterz called for a new and independent scientific review of the COVID-19 vaccines’ long-term effects. “We need proper independent safety studies to understand what really happened. Without full transparency, people will not trust the conclusions,” he said, according to GB News.
He said the high number of negative side effects associated with the vaccines warrants pausing them, and other vaccines that use similar technology, until independent studies show they are safe.
‘Deeply disturbing is an understatement’
Many Germans who were injured by the COVID-19 shot have difficulty getting compensation in court for pain and suffering because the courts maintain that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine has a positive risk-benefit ratio, according to one commissioner who asked questions during the inquiry.
The commissioner asked Sterz if the benefits of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine seem to outweigh the risks.
Sterz said no.
According to Sterz, the mathematician Robert Rockenfeller, Ph.D., from the University of Koblenz, estimates there are 25 severe side effects from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for one severe course of COVID-19 infection that the shot allegedly prevented.
Commenting on Sterz’s testimony, Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a prominent British cardiologist and public health campaigner, wrote on X, “Deeply disturbing is an understatement.”
Dr. Ryan Cole, head of medical and scientific affairs for the Independent Medical Alliance, a national coalition representing more than 12,000 independent physicians and clinicians, asked why the COVID-19 vaccines are still on the market.
Pfizer’s own Chief toxicologist. No the shots were not checked for cancer potential, reproductive harms or toxicity. Why are they still on the market? Many lost our careers for telling the truth, but too many have and will lose their lives. We will keep telling the truth and… https://t.co/bmbcSzcyXj
— Ryan Cole MD (@DoctorCole) March 23, 2026
Peter Imanuelsen, a Swedish journalist and political commentator, posted on X that Sterz’s remarks should be headline news everywhere.
Musk’s comments that went viral included a repost of Imanuelsen’s post.
