DeepfakeHigh
Purportedly AI-Generated Deepfake Ads on Facebook Reportedly Impersonate Trump, Musk, Ocasio-Cortez, Warren, Sanders, and Leavitt to Promote Fraudulent Rebates
- Occurred
- Oct 1, 2025
- Published
- Oct 2, 2025
- Source
- AI Incident Database
Summary
A Tech Transparency Project investigation identified purportedly AI-generated deepfake ads on Facebook impersonating President Trump, Elon Musk, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. The ads allegedly promoted fake $5,000 government rebates and similar scams, reportedly misleading users and generating ad revenue for Meta before removal.
Developers
- Meta
- Deepfake technology developers
- Synthetic audio generation technology developers
Deployers
- Scammers operating Meta ad accounts
- Senior Health Daily USA (advertiser)
- RFY News Group (advertiser network)
- Relief Eligibility Center (advertiser)
- Meta
- I Love My Freedom (advertiser)
- Health Benefits for Seniors (advertiser)
- Hannah Grace (advertiser)
- Get Covered Today (advertiser)
- Freedom Asset Advocates (advertiser)
- End the Wokeness (advertiser)
- Asking America (advertiser)
- American Relief Programs (scam network)
- Scammers
Harmed parties
- Public trust
- Meta users
- Karoline Leavitt
- Instagram users
- General public
- Facebook users
- Epistemic integrity
- Elon Musk
- Elizabeth Warren
- Elderly individuals
- Donald Trump
- Bernie Sanders
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Classification
Category confidence: 95%
Severity confidence: 85%
Rationale: AI-generated deepfake ads impersonating public figures to promote fraud constitute a significant harm and regulatory concern.
Classifier: Qwen/Qwen3.5-35B-A3B-FP8