The New York Times

That’s not Elon Musk. It’s a scam.

After Elon Musk endorsed an investment opportunity in a video, Steve Beauchamp drained his retirement account and sank it into the project. The problem was, it wasn’t Musk in the video. And the money vanished.

Thousands of deepfake videos of Musk have flooded the internet in recent months. They are cobbled together with A.I. from real interviews and have deceived scores of would-be investors. These eerily lifelike creations are expected to contribute to billions of dollars in fraud losses each year, according to estimates.

“It’s probably the biggest deepfake-driven scam ever,” said Francesco Cavalli, the co-founder of a company that monitors and detects deepfakes.