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- The 13-second clip starts with the lookalike, who remains unidentified, standing beside a black sedan inside what appears to be a parking lot. At a glimpse, the man looks somewhat similar to Musk, 50, but when he smiles, the resemblance becomes uncanny.
- The man looks so identical to Time’s 2021 Person of the Year that some Facebook users could not help but be skeptical and called the video a deepfake.
- Deepfake technology allows users to superimpose the face of anyone they want onto another person’s body in a video format – think Photoshop but for videos of moving people. California passed a law in 2019 that “prohibits the use of deepfakes to influence political campaigns,” as Davis Wright Tremaine reported.
- It is still unclear whether the video is legit or just a product of digital manipulation, as the identity of the man in front of the camera remains unknown.
- “I admire anyone who is making a positive contribution to humanity, whether that is in entertainment or technology,” Musk told Time. “I think anyone who is doing things that are really useful for the rest of humanity, I admire them greatly.”