Why you should be skeptical of that ‘leaked’ audio of JD Vance criticizing Elon Musk

From X to TikTok, several users claimed to share "leaked" audio of Vice President JD Vance expressing frustration with billionaire businessman and presidential adviser Elon Musk. 

"Leaked audio of JD Vance in a jealous rant," one X user posted March 23. "Let’s just say JD Vance is no fan of Elon Musk and thinks he makes him look bad." 

Let’s just say, the audio does not appear legitimate.

The post included a muffled audio clip that sounds like Vance is saying, "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." 

Without naming Musk, the voice in the clip describes the person as South African and references "his cars." Musk was born in South Africa and is chief executive officer of electric car company Tesla.

The earliest versions of the audio that we could find appeared March 23 on TikTok. The account @valentinbeatz posted the oldest version, and the account @josey6529 posted the most viral video. Both accounts have previously posted videos critical of the Trump administration. 

The audio clip then migrated to X, with some accounts appearing to add more audio distortion. 

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There are many signs the audio clip is not authentic.

First, the TikTok users did not explain how they obtained leaked audio of Vance speaking in private. The videos do not provide context about where or when the audio was recorded, or more details about the source.

Vance’s communications director posted March 23 on X that "this audio is 100% fake and most certainly not the Vice President." On March 24, Vance posted on X: "It's a fake AI-generated clip."

On that point, we reached out to V.S. Subrahmanian, a computer science professor who heads Northwestern University’s Security and AI Lab. 

Subrahmanian said the high amount of background noise is a sign of potential manipulation. "We have previously seen the use of background noise to confound automated deep fake detectors."

But after isolating the speaker’s voice, Subrahmanian analyzed the audio using 20 different deepfake detector algorithms. Seven out of 20 of the algorithms found it to be "likely fake" with a higher probability, the remaining 13 found it to be likely fake with a lower probability.

His conclusion was that the audio is likely fabricated and "possibly generated via artificial intelligence." 

A viral video claims to be "leaked" audio of Vance criticizing Musk. But an expert who reviewed the audio found signs that it might have been AI generated and is likely fabricated. Also, those sharing the video provided no details about how or where it was obtained, and Vance denied the video’s authenticity.

We rate the claim that this video shows "leaked audio" of Vance False.