On Thursday, YouTube was inundated with deepfake videos of Elon Musk, created by scammers trying to exploit the excitement around SpaceX’s latest Starship rocket launch. Over 35 YouTube channels broadcast fake live streams featuring an AI-generated voice of Musk, promising to double any crypto deposits sent to him, as reported by Avast Threat Labs on June 6.
These fraudulent streams coincided with SpaceX’s fourth test launch of its massive reusable Starship rocket. The authentic livestream showed the rocket successfully re-entering Earth’s atmosphere and splashing down in the Indian Ocean as planned.
One YouTube channel impersonated the official SpaceX account, running three simultaneous scam streams with 170,000 viewers, likely inflated by bots to appear credible. These streams displayed wide-angle shots of Musk speaking at an outdoor SpaceX event, with some footage blurred to make detecting the fake more difficult.
The AI voice mimicked Musk’s characteristic stutters and pauses, assuring viewers that “this is not a fake, this is a real giveaway. I personally guarantee it to you.”
It then encouraged viewers to send Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), or Dogecoin (DOGE) to a specified address, promising to return double the amount.
The scammers used phrases like “You have a chance to see your crypto propel exponentially as our rocket propels toward the stars,” followed by applause sounds. It is unclear how many people fell for the scam, but nine cryptocurrency wallets linked to the fraud, have a combined balance of around $34,000, with many transactions recorded on June 6.
The fraudulent streams have been removed, and the YouTube channel has since rebranded to mimic the Cardano Foundation, now running a similar scam using a deepfake of Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson.
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