Altered video puts words in the mouths of Elon Musk and a Canadian journalist

In a Sept. 20 Facebook video, Rosemary Barton, chief political correspondent for the CBC, or Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, appears to be talking with X owner Elon Musk about a scheme that will enable Canadians to reap thousands of dollars while quitting their jobs.

"Canadians no longer have to work," Barton appears to say. "Elon Musk presented his new project in which he has already invested more than $3 billion. No other project has ever given such opportunities. This trading app allows users to enjoy trading without any hassle. We asked Elon about this news and here are his comments about it." 

The video then cuts to Musk, who appears to say: "My new project will only be available to Canadian citizens for a limited time. We have developed part of the Quantum AI software. It is a first. I have personally spent $5 billion to develop it over two years."

Text in the video’s bottom portion uses an abbreviation for the Canadian dollar and says, "Every Canadian citizen who contributes 400 CAD to this project will receive a prize of 45,000 CAD in the first month."

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

Featured Fact-check

Threads posts

stated on October 26, 2024 in a Threads post

Four Florida counties had “zero results” Oct. 26, and “something underhanded might be happening.”

This video was altered. 

The clip of Barton appears to come from a May 7 broadcast in which she discussed the coronation of King Charles III and Finland joining NATO. The broadcast’s guests did not include Musk. 

The clip of Musk, meanwhile, comes from a May 23 interview with Wall Street Journal editor Thorold Barker in which Musk  discussed SpaceX, artificial intelligence and Twitter. 

We’ve fact-checked previous claims trying to link Musk to Quantum AI, a supposed cryptocurrency software, but have found no evidence that he’s connected. 

We rate this post False.