How scammers use Elon Musk’s deepfake in crypto scams?

With the development of artificial intelligence technologies, fraudsters are inventing increasingly sophisticated schemes to deceive people. From fake videos of celebrities to phishing emails indistinguishable from real ones, a new wave of threats has emerged with deepfakes and generative AI, which can create highly convincing fakes. Read more in our previous coverage.

GFCN expert Alexandre Guerreiro investigated a new scam scheme in which fraudsters use a deepfake of Elon Musk to lure users into participating in a «cryptocurrency giveaway». Below is a detailed exposé of the scam website.

Fake: Elon Musk is giving away cryptocurrency on a special website.

Truth: The site features a deepfake video falsely showing Musk promoting a «cryptocurrency giveaway» — this is a scam designed to steal money from victims.

GFCN explains:

April 10, 2025 — An X social network user reported falling victim to an elaborate cryptocurrency scam involving a fake Tesla website. According to the victim, the fraudulent platform stole money from his cryptocurrency wallet after he interacted with it.

The user shared a link to the scam website as evidence. The site’s homepage features what appears to be a convincing deepfake video of Elon Musk personally inviting cryptocurrency holders to participate in a «special prize giveaway.»

The website operators, posing as Tesla representatives, attribute their purported generosity to an unverified legal victory. They claim the company saved billions through a cryptocurrency and securities court case, and are now offering this «giveaway» to thank loyal supporters.

The participation terms appear deceptively simple: users need only send any amount to a specified account. In return, the site promises to double the sent amount, with those transferring more than 100 tokens receiving an additional «special bonus.» To encourage larger contributions, the site emphasizes that participants may join the «giveaway» only once, creating artificial urgency for visitors to send maximum amounts.

Is it really that easy?

GFCN’s deepfake detection system «Zephyr» analyzed the promotional video featured on the scam website. The system confirmed what experts suspected — Elon Musk’s apparent cryptocurrency giveaway announcement was indeed a sophisticated deepfake fabrication.

Alexandre Guerreiro noted that the original footage as coming from Musk’s speech at Tesla’s «We, Robot» event. The fraudsters altered specific segments of the video, with the most obvious manipulations occurring between the 3rd and 10th seconds. They used multiple deepfake techniques including lip-sync technology and full synthetic face generation (commonly known as face swapping). The fraudsters additionally manipulated specific frames within the video.

Thus, the video is fake. These are simply scammers attempting to steal people’s money.

Elon Musk is the “face” for many scams

This incident marks yet another case of scammers exploiting Elon Musk’s likeness for fraudulent schemes.

In November 2024, Law News New Zealand reported on a similar scam. Social media platforms were flooded with posts from victims who had fallen for a fake Elon Musk video promoting $15,000 bitcoin giveaways on a fraudulent website.

The Elon Musk deepfake scam exemplifies the escalating danger of AI-powered fraud. As generative AI enables convincing forgeries in minutes, professional fact-checkers like GFCN have become essential defenses against digital deception. Only systematic verification, expert analysis, and public awareness can effectively combat this new era of AI-driven fraud.

GFCN’s anti-deepfake system «Zephyr» professionally analyzes media content for deepfakes. If you encounter suspicious material, submit it to the GFCN community on X. We will verify the content and provide a detailed assessment.