On Friday (July 26), X owner Elon Musk shared a deepfake video making fun of Vice President Kamala Harris on the popular app. The clip uses AI to imitate Harris’ voice to spoof her own campaign. Even though Musk is the owner of the platform, sharing the racist video violates X’s policies against synthetic and manipulated media.
The manipulated footage has Harris saying she is “the ultimate diversity hire” and that she “had four years under the tutelage of the ultimate deep state puppet, a wonderful mentor, Joe Biden.” The account that originally posted the video came with a warning as “Kamala Harris Ad PARODY.”
However, when Musk posted it, he did not include this context. Instead, he merely shared it and commented “This is amazing” alongside a laughing emoji. The Harris campaign called Musk out for his online antics.
“We believe the American people want the real freedom, opportunity, and security Vice President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump,” campaign spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg stated.
According to X’s policies, “synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm” is banned on the on app. X assesses if the content has been “significantly and deceptively altered, manipulated, or fabricated.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) explained on Threads that if Musk’s post remains up absent of context, both X and Musk “will not only be violating X’s own rules, they’ll be unleashing an entire election season of fake AI voice and image-altered content with no limits, regardless of party.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said videos like the one Musk shared should be illegal. “Manipulating a voice in an ‘ad’ like this one should be illegal,” he said on X. “I’ll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is.”
The post has yet to be removed.