'Yikes:' Elon Musk Reacts To Viral Deepfake Video Of Himself Promoting Crypto Scam

Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk was made aware of a deepfake video earlier this week where an AI version of himself is promoting a cryptocurrency scam.

What Happened: Earlier this week, Benzinga reported that a fake cryptocurrency trading platform called “BitVex” was using Musk and other prominent industry personalities to draw in unsuspecting investors.  

The deepfake technology has been applied to an existing video of Musk’s interview with Chris Anderson at a TED Talk hosted in Vancouver earlier this year.

Yikes. Def not me.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 25, 2022

“Yikes. Def not me,” tweeted Musk after watching the video which makes it out to look like he is promising investors a 30% return on their crypto deposits.

“someone stupid enough to invest in that deserves to lose their money, but at the same time the scammers deserve to spend their life in jail,” said Dogecoin (CRYPTO: DOGE) creator Billy Markus, of the Deepfake video.

See Also: Elon Musk Reacts To Dogecoin Creator's Tweet That 95% Of Crypto Is 'Scams And Garbage'

Both Musk and Markus have regularly called out crypto-related scams in various forms. Musk has been particularly concerned about the abundance of crypto spambots on Twitter and has proposed ways to fix the issue on multiple occasions, pledging to “defeat the spam bots or die trying!”