Fact Check: Elon Musk video casting doubt on moon landing is altered

A clip appearing to show Telsa CEO Elon Musk casting doubt on NASA’s 1969 moon landing is altered. The visuals and audio were edited from an original video uploaded to YouTube, where he was speaking about his bid to better understand the universe.

The video appears as Musk wearing a black T-shirt and dark green jacket, saying that he has “some doubts about the authenticity of the lunar mission claimed by NASA back in 1969.”

“It’s hard to believe that we could have accomplished such a feat with the technology available at the time,” he is heard saying.

The altered clip surfaced on X, opens new tab and Facebook, opens new tab.

The clip is altered from a YouTube video, opens new tab uploaded in June 2023 of Musk in conversation with Edison International president and CEO Pedro Pizarro at the annual meeting of the Edison Electric Institute, which Pizarro serves as chair.

Musk’s hand movements, opens new tab match exactly from timestamp 48:16, opens new tab to 48:58 in the YouTube video with the clip circulating online.

In the original segment where the clip is taken from, Musk is heard discussing his bid to “expand the scope and scale of consciousness such that we are able to better understand the universe and our place in it.”

Nowhere in the YouTube video, or the segment where the clip is taken from, does Musk cast doubt on NASA’s lunar landings. The conversation between Musk and Pizarro was mostly about the future of electric vehicles.

The earliest iteration Reuters found of the altered clip stems from a TikTok account, opens new tab uploaded in October. Among the hashtags used in the caption are “deepfake” and “ai,” and the account name is “deepfakechad.” The account did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.

VERDICT

Altered. Musk’s visuals and audio were edited from a YouTube video uploaded in June 2023.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work.

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