AI-Generated Fake Musk Becomes the Biggest Online Scammer

AI-Generated Fake Musk Becomes the Biggest Online ScammerSteve Beauchamp, an 82-year-old retiree, was hoping to boost his family's income and put his faith in Elon Musk. Late last year, Beauchamp stumbled upon a video in which Musk appeared to be recommending an aggressive investment program promising quick profits

AI-Generated Fake Musk Becomes the Biggest Online Scammer

Steve Beauchamp, an 82-year-old retiree, was hoping to boost his family's income and put his faith in Elon Musk. Late last year, Beauchamp stumbled upon a video in which Musk appeared to be recommending an aggressive investment program promising quick profits. Inspired, Beauchamp quickly reached out to the company behind the video and opened an investment account with $248. However, in the weeks that followed, he gradually increased his investment, eventually withdrawing over $690,000 from his retirement account. But soon after, the money disappeared, falling into the hands of a group of scammers using artificial intelligence for a new type of digital fraud. These scammers cleverly manipulated a real interview of Musk, using AI technology to replace his voice and subtly adjust his lip movements to match the new script they wrote for this digital avatar. The manipulation is almost undetectable to the average viewer. "He looked so real, you could recognize him right away," Beauchamp recalled of the video. "I still don't know if AI made him say those things, but in terms of the video, if someone asked me to pick him out of a crowd, I would be able to."

01 Musk Becomes a Deepfake Favorite

In recent months, the internet has been flooded with thousands of such AI-powered videos known as "deepfakes" featuring a fake Musk, misleading numerous potential investors. Deloitte estimates that this kind of AI-backed deepfake could lead to billions of dollars in fraud losses annually. These videos are incredibly cheap to produce, taking minutes to complete, and they are promoted through social media, including paid advertising on Facebook, significantly expanding their reach. Francesco Cavalli, co-founder and Head of Threat Intelligence at Sensity, a company that monitors and detects deepfake videos, warns: "This could be the largest deepfake scam ever."

These videos are often incredibly realistic, accurately capturing Musk's signature rambling tone and South African accent. Scammers often start with a real video, like a Wall Street Journal interview, keeping the journalist's voice in the fake video, adding to its authenticity. Using advanced lip-syncing technology, scammers adjust Musk's mouth movements to perfectly match their fabricated lines. They also use voice cloning tools to add AI voices, which can replicate any voice from sample snippets. The final advertisement may even include fake graphics mimicking the style of news outlets, which can be quite convincing for the average online user.

According to Sensity's analysis, Musk is the most frequent speaker in these videos. Out of nearly 2,000 analyzed samples, particularly from the end of last year, he appeared in close to a quarter of deepfake scams. In those videos with a cryptocurrency theme, this figure is even closer to 90%. Deepfake advertisements also often use prominent investors like Warren Buffett and business tycoons like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

While it's hard to say exactly how many deepfakes are circulating online, searching the Facebook ad library for common scam-related language reveals hundreds of thousands of ads, many of which include deepfake videos. While Facebook has removed numerous policy-violating content and disabled relevant accounts, other videos remain online, and seemingly more appear every day.

YouTube is also overflowing with this fabricated content, often labeled as "livestreams." In reality, these are pre-recorded deepfake videos. Searching YouTube for keywords like "Elon Bitcoin conference" brings up dozens of videos disguised as live streams, featuring a deepfake Musk peddling cryptocurrency scams, extremely misleading. Following former US President Donald J. Trump's speech at a Bitcoin conference, dozens of videos labeled "live" popped up on YouTube, showcasing a pre-recorded deepfake Musk video claiming to double any cryptocurrency sent to his account. While these videos attracted significant viewership, some garnering hundreds of thousands of views, YouTube claims that scammers may be using bot networks to artificially inflate the view count. A Texas resident reported losing $36,000 worth of Bitcoin in February 2023 after seeing a scam posing as Musk in a supposed "livestream" on YouTube. "I transferred the Bitcoin, and I never received anything," the resident stated.

02 FB and YouTube Become Hotspots

In a statement, YouTube claimed to have removed over 15.7 million channels and over 8.2 million videos between January and March this year, mostly for violating its anti-spam policies. Given the rampant fake advertising, Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest filed a civil lawsuit against Meta, Facebook's parent company, accusing it of negligence in its advertising practices, claiming they misled innocent users into making wrong investments. Forrest's own video has reportedly been used in creating deepfake ads. Meta responded by stating that it is training automated detection systems to identify fraudulent activity on the platform but acknowledges that it is a complex game of cat and mouse, as well-funded scam groups constantly change their tactics to avoid detection. YouTube reiterated its policy against fraud and video manipulation, requiring all creators to clearly disclose when using AI to create realistic content in March this year.

The internet is saturated with related scam reports, with many losing their life savings. The Securities and Futures Commission in Hong Kong issued warnings in May about fraudulent activities involving Musk. Earlier this year, the US Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Bureau of Investigation also warned Americans about the growing number of AI-driven cybercrime and deepfake scams. "Criminals are using AI as a force multiplier, making cyberattacks and other criminal activities more effective and harder to detect," the FBI stressed in an emailed statement.

Digital scams have grown alongside the development of the internet. But with the release of sophisticated AI tools to the public last year, a new wave of deepfake scams featuring Musk emerged, allowing ordinary users to clone celebrity voices or precisely manipulate videos, attracting the attention of the adult entertainment industry, meme makers, and increasingly, scam groups. "What's changing now is organized criminal groups have figured out that this is a way to make money," says Lou Steinberg, founder of cyber security research lab CTMInsights. "We're going to see a lot more of this kind of impersonation, the goal being to steal money."

While AI-generated videos are not perfect, such as Musk's voice sounding robotic in some videos, and his lip movements not always matching the lines, experts warn that these videos are already convincing enough for some scam targets, and the technology is improving over time. According to Cavalli at Sensity, these videos are very cheap to produce, costing roughly $10, and most scammers use a combination of free or cheap tools to piece together a fake video in under 10 minutes. They are primarily located in India, Russia, and Eastern Europe. "It's working," Cavalli says. "So they're going to continue to scale this activity, across borders, translated in multiple languages, and spreading the scams to more targets."

03 Elderly People Become Ideal Targets

These scams often use high-return AI investment software as the bait, initially tempting victims with small investmentsas little as $250. They then induce victims to increase their investment gradually by exaggerating the investment's growth. A video of a Tesla shareholder meeting was also faked, showing Musk explaining an AI-powered automated trading product that he claimed could double investment returns daily.

Experts studying the cryptocurrency community point out that Musk has a unique global fan base, largely composed of conservative, anti-establishment individuals and cryptocurrency enthusiasts who often look for unconventional ways to make wealth, making them ideal targets for these scams. "There is certainly a group of people who believe that the secret to wealth is out there," says Molly White, a researcher studying the cryptocurrency community. She suggests that some people are always chasing the idea of a secret to wealth, believing that once found, it can lead to instant riches.

Scammers particularly target older internet users, who may have some understanding of cryptocurrency, AI, or Musk but lack familiarity with secure investment practices. "Older people have always been a target for scammers, even before the rise of social media," states Finn Brunton, a professor of Science, Technology, and Research at UC Davis, and an expert on the cryptocurrency market.

Beauchamp was a widower who worked as a sales representative for a company in Ontario, Canada, until retiring at age 75. Shortly after joining Facebook in 2023, he stumbled upon a video of Musk promoting an "AI-powered investment bot" that promised to "turn every dollar into eight," attracting him with a story of "unconventional wealth." The video claimed that Musk was investing through the bot, adding to its credibility. "I was very naive," Beauchamp admitted. "I thought, 'This is a chance to make some extra money." It seemed like a "no-brainer," he said.

Beauchamp started with a $248 investment, and when the promised "profits" doubled, he became even more convinced. He then withdrew $150,000 from his retirement account and invested it. As the bot continued to generate "profits," he continued to invest, gradually increasing his investment in the program. The scammer would call him regularly, pretending to be a "personal advisor" and encouraging him to invest more. The platform even started offering "loans" to facilitate further investment. "It was all very believable," he said.

Eventually, Beauchamp realized that he had made a mistake. He was skeptical because the "profits" never seemed to materialize. The bot suddenly stopped generating returns, and communication from the scammer became sporadic. He tried to withdraw his investment, but the platform wouldn