Billionaire Elon Musk is defending his sharing of a fake campaign video for Vice President Kamala Harris to X, formerly Twitter, while taking aim at California Governor Gavin Newsom.
Musk, who purchased the social media platform in 2022 as a self-proclaimed political ” moderate,” has since gone on to endorse former President Donald Trump‘s 2024 presidential campaign while vowing to “destroy the woke mind virus.”
On Friday, Musk shared an altered version of a Harris campaign ad with “deepfake” audio of the vice president appearing to call herself a “deep state puppet.” Musk described the fake video as “amazing” in a caption alongside a “face with tears of joy” emoji.
Harris, the likely Democratic presidential nominee following the withdrawal of President Joe Biden, hit back at the video the next day, with her campaign releasing a statement denouncing “the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”
Newsom also lashed out at Musk for sharing the video on Sunday night, promising on X to sign a bill “in a matter of weeks” that would ban “manipulating a voice” in fake campaign ads.
Manipulating a voice in an “ad” like this one should be illegal.
I’ll be signing a bill in a matter of weeks to make sure it is. pic.twitter.com/NuqOETkwTI
— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 29, 2024
“I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said parody is legal in America [man shrugging emoji],” Musk wrote in a response to Newsom’s post.
I checked with renowned world authority, Professor Suggon Deeznutz, and he said parody is legal in America 🤷♂️ https://t.co/OCBewC3XYD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 29, 2024
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Harris campaign and the office of Newsom via email on Monday.
The altered features an imitation Harris voice saying that she is “the ultimate diversity hire” for president, echoing recent Republican attacks labeling the vice president a DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) candidate.
“I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire,” the deepfake version of Harris says in the ad. “I’m both a woman and a person of color, so if you criticize anything I say, you’re both sexist and racist.”
The fake ad goes to suggest that Harris, who is Black, is attempting to “sound Black” and is regularly doing “impressions” of former President Barack Obama.
The unaltered Harris ad includes the Beyoncé song “Freedom” and attempts to highlight the political differences between the vice president and Trump in terms of “freedom.”
“We choose freedom,” the real voice of Harris says in the ad. “The freedom not just to get by, but get ahead. The freedom to be safe from gun violence. The freedom to make decisions about your own body.”
The Harris campaign said the following in a statement released on Saturday: “We believe the American people want the real freedom, opportunity, and security Vice President Harris is offering; not the fake, manipulated lies of Elon Musk and Donald Trump.”
Musk and Newsom have lashed out at each other over politics on X in the past.
Earlier this month, the billionaire promised to move his companies out of California due to the governor signing a bill preventing schools from enacting “forced outing policies” for transgender students.
Newsom accused Musk of having ” bent the knee” to Trump in response, a reference to the former president previously boasting that he could have commanded Musk to “drop to your knees and beg” and “he would have done it.”
Musk, who has tied his crusade against the “woke mind virus” to having a transgender daughter who he considers to be “dead,” responded by telling the governor, “You never get off your knees.”
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
