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Ciara O'Rourke
By Ciara O'Rourke August 31, 2023

Altered video appears to show Elon Musk talking about a ‘passive income’ opportunity. It’s fake.

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  • This video was altered.

A recent Facebook post follows a familiar script: altering a video of X owner Elon Musk to make it appear as if he’s promoting a product that enables people to make passive income. 

"Incredibly, only 2.73% of UK citizens know this, no experience required," reads the Aug. 22 caption on a video that alternates between footage of a woman who appears to be interviewing Musk and of Musk speaking to a camera. 

"So you saying that Quantum AI is revolution of passive income?" the woman appears to say.

"Yes," Musk appears to reply. "Banks does not providing enough support for people. Quantum does."

The butchered grammar is just one clue that this isn’t an authentic offer, interview or video. It’s been altered, and 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.)

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The footage of Musk comes from his first meeting addressing employees of what was then known as Twitter — now X — in June 2022.

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Alex Heath, an editor for The Verge, tweeted at the time that Musk talked about the company — not Quantum AI. He took questions from employees and hinted about possible future layoffs.

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 the claim that a video shows Elon Musk talking about making "passive income" with "Quantum AI" False.

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Altered video appears to show Elon Musk talking about a ‘passive income’ opportunity. It’s fake.

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