By: Toibah Kirmani
July 11 2023
Digitally altered video of Elon Musk used to promote trading platform Quantum AI
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Fact-Check
The Verdict False
Video from a speech Musk gave in May 2023 has been morphed with different audio. Musk never endorsed Quantum AI.
Claim ID 5e13471e
Context
A viral Facebook post from July 6, 2023, claims that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has endorsed trading platform Quantum AI, and asked people to sign up for it. The video caption claims, “Elon Musk is urging everyone in the U.K. to take advantage of this great opportunity before the big banks close completely. Elon Musk’s latest investment surprises banking experts and scares big banks too.”
The post has 145,000 views and includes a video in which Musk seems to be promoting Quantum AI, where he appears to say that it “aims to address critical global challenges such as poverty and other pressing issues.” Archive of the post can be accessed here.
In Fact
There are some discrepancies in the audio and video. Elon’s pronunciation of his name is also inaccurate, and his voice seems different. The words being said do not match the movement of his mouth.
We then performed a reverse Google image search on the keyframes of the video. We found that the original video is, in fact, Musk’s speech at the annual shareholder meeting held in May 2023, uploaded on YouTube by Tesla's official channel. The video is one hour and 50 minutes long, and Musk's speech starts at the 22:35 mark in the video. Musk is wearing the same black T-shirt and black trousers in this video, as seen in the viral video. However, he makes no mention of Quantum AI.
During Tesla's annual shareholder meeting in Austin, Texas, Musk dismissed rumors of him stepping down as CEO, discussed new mass-market models, and confirmed the start of Cybertruck deliveries this year, as reported by Reuters on May 17.
We did a keyword search on Musk and QuantumAI and found no credible reports of him speaking about the company. Considering Musk's prominence, it is highly unlikely that any significant product launch or investment by him would go unnoticed by the media.
While researching Quantum AI, we discovered multiple websites related to it, all claiming to be the official websites. While most of these websites assert that they are AI trading tools designed to help users generate profits, one particular website named Quantum AI has the same logo as seen in the manipulated video. This website explicitly states that it has no affiliation with Musk.
“The Quantum AI trading platform we're discussing has nothing to do with Elon Musk. Apparently, this is just a rumor or assumption spread by people. If it were true, Musk would definitely tell the world about it so that people could benefit from Quantum AI. But he hasn’t done it even once. So it shows that Elon Musk never endorsed the platform,” the text on the website says, under the header: “Does Elon Musk Endorse Quantum AI?”
Logically Facts has previously debunked a similar claim that Musk and Tesla launched a cryptocurrency trading platform called Bit Lidex 360. This claim originated from a fake BBC website and is also false.
The Verdict
The video of Musk promoting the Quantum AI platform is digitally altered. There is no credible evidence of Musk's endorsement of Quantum AI. Hence, we rate this claim as false.