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What’s the story
A recent cryptocurrency scam on a YouTube Live broadcast employed a deepfake of Elon Musk to deceive viewers.
The five-hour-long broadcast featured an AI-generated version of Musk’s voice, instructing viewers to deposit their Bitcoin, Ethereum, or Dogecoin on a specific website for a giveaway.
The scam promised that the system would “automatically send back double the amount of the cryptocurrency you deposited.”
Scam attracts thousands, propels to YouTube’s top live
The fraudulent Musk broadcast attracted over 30,000 viewers at its peak, pushing it to the top of YouTube’s Live Now recommendations.
However, these numbers may have been artificially boosted by bots.
The account behind the scam, @elon.teslastream, had an Official Artist Channel verification badge, suggesting a potential account hack.
Both the video and the channel were taken down after Google was alerted by Engadget.
Rise in Musk deepfake scams on social media
The latest incident is part of a growing trend of Musk deepfake scams, using an account posing as one of Musk’s companies.
The recent scam was titled “Tesla unveils a masterpiece: The Tesla that will change the car industry forever.”
Similar scams were reported by Cointelegraph earlier this month, involving 35 accounts pretending to be SpaceX during the Starship launch.
In April, scammers capitalized on eclipse hype using the same tactic. Fake Musk livestreams were also posted on Reddit recently.
Celebrity-targeted crypto scams not limited to Musk
Cryptocurrency scams targeting followers of Musk on social media, have been a persistent issue for years.
However, this problem is not confined to Musk alone. Other celebrities have also fallen prey to such scams.
For instance, rapper 50 Cent was recently victimized by a hack that utilized his accounts to execute a pump-and-dump scheme last Friday.
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