Elon Musk Falls For Fake Video of Venezuelans Celebrating Trump
The billionaire Tesla CEO shared an AI-generated video of Venezuelans crying tears of joy and thanking the president.
Elon Musk is sharing low-quality, AI-generated content in an apparent attempt to curry favor with the president.
The billionaire retweeted a video that was clearly generated by AI, supporting U.S. intervention in Venezuela late Saturday night, as part of a campaign to glorify President Donald Trump.
The video was posted by the far-right account Wall Street Eps on the X platform. The caption reads: “Venezuelans take to the streets to celebrate the fall of Maduro.” It shows people waving Venezuelan flags, shedding tears of joy, and shouting “Thank you, Trump!”
Attentive X users quickly noticed the video’s strangeness. It bore all the hallmarks of AI manipulation, including blurriness and artificial background movements. The video was flagged with a community note, an X feature that allows users to fact-check posts and add context. The note reads, in part: “This video is AI-generated and is currently being presented as a factual statement in an attempt to mislead people.”
The note also pointed out that the license plates in the video did not match those of Venezuela.
Musk did not acknowledge the nature of the video he shared, although it is one of several AI-generated videos he has retweeted in the past week. He has regularly promoted images and videos created by Grok, his company’s AI assistant.
Grok has faced heavy criticism in recent days after the program generated inappropriate images of children. Musk subsequently tweeted that “anyone using Grok to create illegal content will face the same consequences as if they had uploaded illegal content themselves.”
However, Musk’s chatbot continues to malfunction, with Grok notably insulting its creator’s political allies. Grok recently called Trump a pedophile and confused Erica Kirk with JD Vance while he was wearing a wig.
While sharing this low-quality AI-generated content, Musk heaped praise on Trump’s attacks against Venezuela. He changed his X profile picture to the American flag and congratulated the president on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
“Congratulations, Mr. President Trump! This is a victory for the world and a clear message to all tyrants,” the SpaceX founder tweeted Saturday afternoon.
After months of disagreements, Musk appears to have restored his status as a “close friend” of the president. On Saturday evening, following the military operation in Venezuela, the two men reaffirmed their friendship during a dinner at Mar-a-Lago. They entered the presidential residence in South Florida, accompanied by Melania Trump, to sporadic applause.
