Original article (in Serbian) was published on 29/11/2023; Author: Marija Zemunović
A reader asked us to check whether the video in which entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk praises Serbia is real: “I saw this post a few minutes ago and I’m almost sure it was made with the help of artificial intelligence, but I can’t explain it to my parents. They are unfamiliar with the very concept of artificial intelligence, and I think it would be good for you to investigate this because I’m sure many people will believe it”.
A reader reached out to Fake News Tracker with a request to verify the authenticity of a video circulating online. The video in question shows entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk seemingly praising Serbia.
“I saw this post a few minutes ago and I’m almost sure it was made with the help of artificial intelligence, but I can’t explain it to my parents. They are unfamiliar with the very concept of artificial intelligence, and I think it would be good for you to investigate this because I’m sure many people will believe it,” said the reader.
This video is tagged by TikTok accounts @mindsetmajstor and @modernistoicizam. At the time of our analysis, these channels were inaccessible. However, the video has also been spotted on other TikTok accounts, as well as on other social media platforms, including YouTube and Twitter / X, allowing for broader scrutiny.
Subsequent note (December 5, 2023): We managed to access the @mindsetmajstor channel later. In the description of the account, it is stated that “All videos are the work of AI”. You can also make your own video with parrot ai the link below”.
Update (December 5, 2023): Our team eventually gained access to the @mindsetmajstor TikTok channel. The account’s description explicitly states, “All videos are the work of AI.Y ou can also make your own video with parrot ai the link below.”
In the video itself, Elon Musk is seen speaking in English, saying:
“Would I ever visit Serbia? I just want to say that I am a big fan of Novak Djokovic. And the decision not to receive the vaccine is very brave and daring. I love Serbia and Serbs. And I hope that they can return Kosovo because it is theirs and always has been. I will visit them in a few weeks.”
However, upon closer examination, it’s clear that this is a fake video as some users already suspected.
Where does the video come from?
The video featuring Elon Musk in a white shirt and black jacket against a blue-purple background was actually sourced from a 2022 interview titled “Elon Musk talks about Twitter, Tesla and how his brain works – live at TED2022.” In the original footage, which presents the same camera angle, Musk did not mention Serbia, Novak Djokovic, or Kosovo.
Interestingly, the footage of Musk from this panel has already been used to attribute various fabricated statements to Musk, both serious (1) and humorous (2, 3). Musk spoke out and distanced himself from the content when footage from this panel was used for a cryptocurrency scam. “Ouch. Definitely not me”, he tweeted.
How was the manipulation created?
There is also the question of how the fake video of Musk praising Serbia was created in the first place. We focused on two clues we came across.
- Firstly, to the left of Musk’s face in the video, there are two transparent squares that move in sync with his facial expressions. One square is aligned with his eyes, and the other corresponds with his mouth. A notable aspect of this footage is the blurred movement of the mouth, a common characteristic in artificially generated videos.
- One of the previously humorously created fake videos of Musk, also in English, bears the watermark of an online tool known as Try Parrot AI.
To further investigate the creation of the fake video featuring Elon Musk, we visited the website of the Try Parrot AI tool. We selected Elon Musk’s voice option and input our own text for the AI to vocalize. The result was the exact same shot as in the fake video: it showed Musk in a white shirt, black jacket, and against a blue-purple background, reciting the text we provided. Our generated video also displayed the two transparent squares in the eye and mouth areas, along with the blurred mouth movement, identical to the video where Musk is supposedly praising Serbia.
It’s also worth mentioning that following the circulation of the original fake video of Musk praising Serbia, another spoof video emerged on TikTok. In this parody, Musk is falsely claiming to be from Republika Srpska, Serbian-dominated administrative entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and interestingly, the tags of this video mention the Parrot AI tool.