A separatist agenda in Nigeria is taking advantage of deepfake tools and spreading a video of billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk appearing to promote a plan to help Biafra secede from Nigeria.
This makes it seem like US President Donald Trump is backing the Biafra-as-a-nation agenda. This information is false and artificial intelligence AI-generated.
This is not the first time that such videos have surfaced online to spread false information about the secession of Biafra. Neither is it the first time that the US President have been made to look like a supporter of the movement.
The latest was shared on March 1, 2025 on the separatist’s page where similar content can be seen.
A reverse image search using the InVID-WeVerify tool concludes that it is fake. Musk did not say anything about Biafra in the original video which was discovered to be from a 2017 TED talk.
In the original footage, Musk spoke about Tesla, Space X, and his ambition to explore Mars.
The fake video generated claims that Musk said this; “As my good friend Mr President Donald Trump has already said, he is going to free Mazi Nnamdi Kanu from DSS quarters because the Nigerian court has already discharged and acquitted him in October 2022 and also support Biafra referendum.”
There was no mention of Nigeria, Biafra, or Kanu in the entire speech.
There are a ton of online tools out there that can do this. They create deepfakes using AI to modify what a person says in a video. One of the sites offers templates for the creation of fake videos and footage of Musk on his 2017 TED Talk was found on it.
