Video of Trump announcing ban on US Tesla production is manipulated
- Published on June 18, 2025 at 11:13
- 3 min read
- By Akshita KUMARI, AFP India
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"Trump bans Tesla production in the USA," reads an Instagram post shared June 9, 2025.
It includes a video that appears to show Trump saying: "Today I am here to announce that I will be banning the production of all Teslas in the United States of America, effective immediately. As everyone knows, Elon stabbed me in the back a couple of days ago and went crazy on his platform, X."
The false clip surfaced after the pair's public falling-out, in which the tech billionaire criticised Trump's so-called "big, beautiful" spending bill on his X account and linked the president with disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein (archived link).
Trump fired back with threats to cancel federal contracts with Musk's companies and warned of "serious consequences" if he sought to punish Republicans who voted for the spending bill.
Musk later said he regretted some of his posts, saying they "went too far".
The video of Trump's supposed announcement of a Tesla production ban spread alongside similar claims on Facebook, X and Instagram.
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the false video shows a longer version was published June 8, 2025 on an Instagram page called DangerousAi (archived link).
The caption says: "Donald Trump BANS Production of Tesla in USA after feud with Elon Musk."
The creator regularly shares clips made with AI on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube (archived here, here and here).
His YouTube profile says they are "AI Parody Content", and that he creates the videos using "AI for the voiceover".
AFP found no credible reports that Trump has banned Tesla vehicle production in the United States.
The false video appears to be based on footage from a May 30 press conference at the White House during which Trump thanked Musk for his work as outgoing head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (archived here and here).
AFP has debunked other AI-generated and manipulated content here.
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