Billionaire Elon Musk is defending the sharing of a fake campaign video of Vice President Kamala Harris on X, formerly Twitter, while taking aim at California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Elon Musk, who bought the social media platform in 2022 as a self-described political “moderate,” has since endorsed former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign while vowing to “destroy the virus of the woke mind.”
On Friday, Elon Musk shared an edited version of a Harris campaign ad with “deepfake” audio of the vice president appearing to pose as a “deep state puppet.” Musk described the fake video as “amazing” in a caption accompanied by a “face with tears of joy” emoji.
Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee after President Joe Biden withdrew, hit back at the video the next day, with her campaign issuing a statement denouncing “the false and manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”
Newsom also lashed out at Musk for sharing the video Sunday night, promising on X to sign a bill “in a matter of weeks” that would ban “vote manipulation” in fake campaign ads.
Manipulating a voice in an “advertisement” like this should be illegal.
I will sign an invoice in a few weeks to make sure. pic.twitter.com/NuqOETkwTI
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 29, 2024
“I checked with a renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said that parody is legal in America. [man shrugging emoji]”, Musk wrote in response to Newsom’s post.
I checked with a renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said that parody is legal in America 🤷♂️ https://t.co/OCBewC3XYD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2024
Newsweek reached out to the Harris campaign and Newsom’s office by email Monday for comment.
The edited version features an imitation of Harris’ voice saying she is “the ultimate diversity hire” for president, echoing recent Republican attacks calling the vice president a DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) candidate.
“I was chosen because I am the perfect diversity person,” the fake version of Harris reads in the ad. “I am both a woman and a person of color, so if you criticize anything I say, you are both sexist and racist.”
Kent Nishimura
The fake ad suggests that Harris, who is black, tries to “look black” and regularly does “impersonations” of former President Barack Obama.
Harris’ unchanged ad features the Beyoncé song “Freedom” and attempts to highlight the political differences between the vice president and Trump in terms of “freedom.”
“We choose freedom,” Harris’s real voice says in the ad. “Freedom not just to get by, but to move forward. Freedom to be safe from gun violence. Freedom to make decisions about your own body.”
Harris’ campaign said in a statement Saturday: “We believe the American people want the real freedom, opportunity and security that Vice President Harris delivers, not the false and manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”
Musk and Newsom have clashed over political issues in the past.
Earlier this month, the billionaire vowed to move his businesses out of California because the governor signed a bill preventing schools from adopting “forced disclosure policies” for transgender students.
Newsom accused Musk of “bending the knee” to Trump in response, a reference to the former president who previously boasted that he could have ordered Musk to “get on his knees and beg” and “he would have done it.”
Elon Musk, who has linked his crusade against the “awakened mind virus” to having a transgender daughter he considers “dead,” responded by telling the governor: “You never get back up.”
Uncommon knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
