The Cyber Crime Wing of the Tamil Nadu Police has alerted members of the public to the trend of cyber frauds, involving fake promotional videos on social media platforms portraying Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk endorsing cryptocurrency trading platforms. These scams typically use edited or manipulated clips from real interviews — including those from recent discussions involving Errol Musk, Elon’s father — to falsely lend credibility to fraudulent investment schemes, the Cyber Crime Police said.
Additional Director-General of Police, Cyber Crime, Sandeep Mittal, said the wing had identified 26 such Instagram URLs and 14 such fake websites and sent requests to intermediaries concerned to take down the posts and block the websites immediately. The wingpublic said Elon Musk had “not” endorsed any platform by giving any offer of free or complimentary Bitcoin for registering on any crypto trading website.
‘Edited videos’
These scams use edited videos generally using artificial intelligence to deceive people. People may lose money or compromise personal data by interacting with these fraudulent platforms, the police warned.
Published – May 02, 2025 12:38 am IST