(Archived versions of more posts sharing this clip can be seen here and here.)
Did he do that?: No, the clip has been tampered with.
We found no evidence of any such announcement by Musk, nor does the original video show him talking about cryptocurrency.
How did we find out the truth?: To begin with, we ran a keyword search with the term 'Elon Musk cryptocurrency giveaway' on Google, but did not find any credible reports or announcements.
Next, we ran a reverse image search on the video using Google Lens, to look for the full clip.
This led us to a YouTube short by news organisation India Today, which showed the same, futuristic vehicle, and Musk in the same outfit.
The report mentioned Musk launching new products during a Tesla Motors event called 'We, Robot'.
Taking a cue from this, we looked for the video on Tesla's YouTube channel.
Here, we found a livestream of the launch event, which was titled 'We, Robot | Tesla Cybercab Unveil' and streamed on 11 October 2024.
We went through this video where Musk launched robots, a van, and a taxi, but did not find any mention of cryptocurrency.
However, around the 14:20-minute mark, while Musk spoke about Tesla's new self driving taxi called 'Cybercab' , we noticed that his hand movements matched the first part of the viral video.
Further, at the 19:30-minute mark, one can see Musk with his hand to his head on the stage with Tesla's bus, 'Robovan' in frame, just like in the viral video.
Is it AI?: To learn whether the video had been altered using Artificial Intelligence (AI), we submitted it to TrueMedia's AI detection tool.
Its analysis found "substantial evidence" of Musk's face being manipulated, while a semantic (language) analysis of the speech's content also pointed towards it being inauthentic.
However, it wasn't entirely certain if the video was a deepfake.
We also ran the video through Contrails.AI's tool, created by the Bengaluru-based AI startup working on detecting AI-generated content.
Their report said that the audio appeared to be "AI cloned."
Analysing the visual element of the clip, the report mentioned that the frames in the clip "appear to be manipulated using lip-sync AI."
The domain: In the altered video, Musk appears to promote the website 'elon-crypto.org'.
We looked for details about this website on Whois domain search, which showed that 'elon-crypto.org' was registered as recently as 1 November 2024.
We also noticed that the domain was registered in Slovakia.
This is unusual for Musk-run companies, such as Tesla, SpaceX, X, and The Boring Company, whose domains were all registered in or before 2014 and in the United States of America.
(Swipe to view domain details.)
Tesla's domain was registered in 1992.
(Source: Whois/Altered by The Quint)
Is it a scam?: We entered the URL into scam detector websites like Scam Adviser and Scam Detector, both of which showed low trust scores for it, indicating that the website was likely a fraudulent one.
Conclusion: This video about Elon Musk talking about giving away cryptocurrency is a deepfake scam.
(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9540511818 , or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)