A new Tesla ad shared on social media claiming to feature Ryan Reynolds has come to the attention of Elon Musk – only, it’s not real and instead it's completely fabricated through the use of deepfake technology.
Tesla CEO Musk replied to Twitter user @meetRealKevin after he posted a video that jokingly claimed to feature Reynolds as the new face of the company.
"How much do you think it would cost to own a car that’s this f***ing awesome?!” the fake Reynolds says in the clip.
He then adds: “Whose balls do I have to fondle to get a Tesla instead of a s*** Corolla?”
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Musk replied to the clip by commenting with the word “nice”, simultaneously bringing it to the attention of his millions of followers.
It wasn’t long until the shoe was on the other foot, though.
Digital marketing agency Maximum Effort, which was been co-founded by Reynolds, then posted a deepfake video which sees an artificial version of Musk promoting Reynolds’ company Aviation Gin.
Reynolds’ response? The actor simply added the comment “nice”.
It’s not the first time stories about Musk and deepfakes have made headlines over recent times.
Photos of Elon Musk kissing a female humanoid robot has gone viral, but everything is not as it seems. In fact, four AI-generated images of Musk kissing three different “wife” robots and dancing with one other female-looking humanoids have been shared far and wide online.
It comes after Reynolds appeared to troll celebrity pal Taylor Swift over recent rumours that she's dating The 1975's Matty Healy.
In a post to his Instagram Stories, the 'Deadpool' actor shared a selfie of himself and chose to include The 1975’s hit song "Chocolate," for the music.
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