Musk's lawyers said he's 'the subject of many 'deepfake' videos and audio recordings that purport to show him saying and doing things he never actually said or did.'
Then came a pretty unbelievable twist that, sadly, may well become a common feature in high profile trials. Tesla's solicitors opposed Musk being deposed, arguing both that he couldn't remember details of the statement, and that the recording may not be authentic:
That is a pretty striking claim, especially about a video posted six years ago from the official Recode conference account and with just under four million views over that timespan. We've obviously seen various examples of deepfakes in recent times, but the source material here seems as legit as it gets and frankly I doubt the technology was there in 2016 to produce something like this.
"Their position is that because Mr Musk is famous and might be more of a target for deep fakes, his public statements are immune," said Pennypacker, before going on to say such arguments amount to high-profile people trying"to avoid taking ownership of what they did actually say and do."
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