The deepfake Musk, with an AI-generated voice, directed viewers to visit a website and deposit bitcoin, Ethereum, or Dogecoin.
A YouTube Live broadcast running for five hours today used a deepfake of Elon Musk to promote a cryptocurrency scam, marking the latest in a series of similar fraudulent streams. The video, now taken down, featured an AI-generated Musk appearing to livestream from a Tesla event. The deepfake Musk, with an AI-generated voice, directed viewers to visit a website and deposit bitcoin, Ethereum, or Dogecoin to participate in a giveaway, promising to “automatically send back double the amount of the cryptocurrency you deposited.”
The stream attracted over 30,000 viewers at its peak, though these numbers could have been inflated by bots, pushing it to the top of YouTube’s Live Now recommendations. The fraudulent account, @elon.teslastream, had the Official Artist Channel verification badge, suggesting a possible account hack. After Engadget reached out to Google, both the video and the channel were removed. Further updates from Google are awaited.
Scammers have recently increased the number of deepfake scams featuring Elon Musk, with scammers frequently using accounts impersonating Musk’s companies. This particular stream was titled “Tesla’s [sic] unveils a masterpiece: The Tesla that will change the car industry forever.” Earlier in June, Cointelegraph reported on similar scams involving 35 accounts pretending to be SpaceX around the launch of the Starship. In April, scammers exploited eclipse hype using the same tactic, as reported by Mashable.
Cryptocurrency scams targeting Musk’s followers on social media have been an ongoing issue, along with scams involving other celebrities. Recently, 50 Cent’s accounts were hacked to carry out a pump-and-dump scheme. The persistence and evolution of these scams underscore the challenges in protecting users from sophisticated online frauds, particularly those leveraging AI and deepfake technology.