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Quick Take
Vice President JD Vance has said White House adviser Elon Musk has made “mistakes” in his work with the Department of Government Efficiency. But social media posts are sharing what experts said is a manipulated audio clip that purports to be Vance making much harsher remarks about Musk. The vice president’s spokesperson called the clip “100% fake.”
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In an interview with NBC News aboard Air Force Two on March 14, Vice President JD Vance said that White House adviser Elon Musk has made “mistakes” in his role with the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which has been tasked with reducing the federal workforce and government spending.
“Elon himself has said that sometimes you do something, you make a mistake, and then you undo the mistake. I’m accepting of mistakes,” Vance told NBC News. “I also think you have to quickly correct those mistakes,” the vice president said.
More recently, viral social media posts have shared a purportedly “leaked” audio clip of Vance expressing much harsher criticism of Musk and his work with DOGE. Experts told us the clip is “likely inauthentic,” and Vance’s spokesperson said it is “100% fake.”
A March 23 Instagram reel that has received nearly 87,000 likes is titled, “LEAKED JD VANCE AUDIO ON ELON MUSK 3/23/25,” and shows side-by-side photos of Musk and Vance. The voice on the reel, which sounds somewhat like Vance, says, in part: “Everything that he’s doing is being criticized in the media. And he says that he’s helping, and he’s not. He’s making us look bad. He’s making me look bad. … He has the audacity to act like he is an elected official. I am an elected official. I am the important one in this situation, not him.”
The social media posts do not provide the source of the recording — a sign that the content of the posts is not authentic.
Newsweek reported that the bogus audio clip appeared to originate from the account Joseiitalia on TikTok, where it received 1.5 million views, and was shared to X where it received more than 500,000 views.
‘A Growing Trend of Fabricated Leaks’
We asked GetReal Labs, a company that analyzes manufactured content, whether it could determine the authenticity of the recording. Emmanuelle Saliba, chief investigative officer at GetReal, told us in a March 24 email, “Our team conducted a detailed forensic analysis of the audio. We tracked down the highest-quality version available, isolated the voice and removed background noise. Based on our review, we believe the audio is likely inauthentic.
“The cadence and intonation are not consistent with Vice President Vance’s typical speech patterns. In addition, although we have not performed a full biometric analysis, the identity of the voice in the audio does not sound like Vance,” Saliba said. “The unusually low audio quality — a common trick to conceal evidence of manipulation/synthesis — is also highly suspicious.”
Responding to the social media posts, the vice president’s spokesperson, William Martin, said in a March 23 post on X, “This audio is 100% fake and most certainly not the Vice President.”
Saliba told us, “Audio deepfakes are becoming increasingly sophisticated, and there’s a growing trend of fabricated leaks targeting high-profile politicians and journalists,” including Donald Trump Jr. and James Waterhouse of the BBC. “In both cases, the manipulated audio was traced back to Russian Telegram channels,” she said.
We recently wrote about social media posts sharing a fake audio clip of Trump Jr. generated using artificial intelligence.
Sources
Gomez, Henry J. “Vance discusses Elon Musk’s ‘mistakes’ and ‘incremental progress’ on the economy in NBC News interview.” 14 Mar 2025.
Jaffe, Alan. “Posts Share Bogus Audio of Donald Trump Jr. Supporting Arms for Russia, Not Ukraine.” FactCheck.org. 27 Feb 2025.
McFall, Marnie Rose. “Is ‘Leaked’ JD Vance Audio on Elon Musk Real? What to Know.” Newsweek. 24 Mar 2025.
Saliba, Emmanuelle. Chief investigative officer, GetReal Labs. Email to FactCheck.org. 24 Mar 2025.
Tuquero, Loreben. “Audio of a BBC reporter making a snide comment about the Trump-Zelenskyy meeting is fake.” Poynter. 13 Mar 2025.
Source: FactCheck
