Elon Musk accused of spreading ‘manipulated lies’ by Kamala Harris campaign

The Kamala Harris campaign has accused Elon Musk of spreading “manipulated lies” on his social media site X.

Elon Musk has been accused of spreading “manipulated lies” by the Kamala Harris campaign.

The Tesla CEO shared a fake video on X, formerly Twitter, of the new Democratic presidential nominee, which was made to look like she was condemning her critics as racists and sexists.

The 52-year-old billionaire – who now owns the social media site – reposted a doctored video of Kamala appearing to say “I was selected because I am the ultimate diversity hire,” and that people who criticise her are “both sexist and racist”.

The video – which was originally posted by another user on X – has racked up more than 180 million views and was condemned by senior Democratic figures.

A spokesperson for Harris’ campaign said: “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.”

Gavin Newsom, the Democratic Governor of California, wrote on X that the video ought to be “illegal” and that he was working on signing a bill that would prohibit such material.

Elon responded to this by writing “parody is legal in America” underneath a repost of the clip.

Irman Ahmed, the CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate and a longtime critic of Elon, said that “Musk is not a fit or proper person to be in control of X Corp.”

Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, told the Guardian newspaper: “Even though most people won’t believe it is VP Harris’s voice, the video is that much more powerful when the words are in her voice, and I’m not sure that an AI-generated label would have had much impact on blunting this effect. This example shows the broad power of generative AI and deepfakes.”