Videos that use AI generated voices of President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are gaining a massive number of views on TikTok, showing that the platform is also suffering from the onslaught of AI-generated slop that has flooded every corner of the internet.
According to Alexios Mantzarlis in his Faked Up newsletter, 400 videos from about two dozen accounts dedicated to posting AI-generated audio of Trump and Musk making quasi-motivational statements have gained more than 700 million views between them.
The most popular of these accounts is Zack D Film (@zackdfilmusa), which has 838,800 followers.
“When you don’t have money, people say, who are you,” an AI-generated Trump voice says while inspirational music plays in the background in Zack D Film’s most popular TikTok, which has more than 24 million views. “When you have money it’s, ‘Hey how are you? Long time no see. You look so beautiful, handsome, and amazing.’ That’s the power of money.”
In another video posted by Mute-Elon (@mute.arsi), an account with 420,100 followers, an AI-generated voice of Musk talks about five things he wishes for in 2025 (health, strength, motivation, etc). “I trust that god sees my struggles, collects my tears, and never abandons me,” the AI voice of Musk says.
While we don’t know whether all the engagement with these videos is authentic, many of them have thousands of comments agreeing with or repeating the gist of the video, with only a handful of commenters pointing out that the voice is AI-generated.
As Jason wrote in his investigation into where Facebook AI slop comes from, the primary reason this type of AI-generated content exists is that it’s profitable. In the case of these AI Trump and Musk channels, at least one avenue for monetization is TikTok’s own in-app store, TikTok Shop. For example, an account called @trumpsaying, which has 57,000 followers and some videos with millions of views, posted more than a dozen videos with an AI-generated Trump voice before pivoting to videos promoting Trump-themed or vaguely patriotic t-shirts. The videos lead viewers directly to the TikTok Shop, where they can purchase the shirt. The videos are also marked as eligible for commission, meaning other creators can get paid for promoting them as well.
A different AI Trump account links to Amazon store pages selling Trump coins and a Trump picture book.
Another TikTok account, in which an AI-generated Musk explains how he will colonize Mars and have his robots rule the world in the future, links to an Amazon store page for what appears to be an AI-generated book about Musk.
TikTok’s community guidelines require users “to label AIGC [AI-generated content] or edited media that shows realistic-appearing scenes or people. This can be done using the AIGC label, or by adding a clear caption, watermark, or sticker of your own.” TikTok’s guidelines also don’t allow content that “falsely shows public figures in certain contexts. This includes being bullied, making an endorsement, or being endorsed.” After I reached out for comment, TikTok removed two of the AI Musk accounts I flagged to the company that did not disclose they were AI-generated.
Some of the videos from some of the accounts that use AI-generated voices of celebrities have a disclosure that says “Creator labeled as AI-generated,” but most do not. The accounts also don’t explicitly endorse products in the videos, but AI Trump accounts promoted Trump-themed products and AI Musk accounts promoted Musk-themed products.
TikTok did not immediately provide comment when we asked whether these accounts violate its policies. It also did not immediately provide comment when we asked whether these videos qualify as “original content” as outlined in its policy about requirements for accounts to qualify for TikTok Creator Rewards Program, which pays TikTok accounts for views.
These AI Musk and Trump accounts and the 700 million views they garnered so far are likely just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to AI slop on TikTok. If you’ve spent any time on the platform you’ve probably noticed that the motivation genre is very popular there. These can come from financial and fitness influence themselves, but also from an endless number of accounts that take clips of motivational speakers, cut them up, and repost them under different accounts.
Jason wrote about some of these accounts last year, which, at the time, were created by people buying “packs” of inspirational clips that had been compiled from podcasts and public appearances and were being sold on Discord. The idea with these packs of clips was to give people trying to make money on TikTok the raw material they needed to make a large number of edited and remixed videos for TikTok.
These videos are trying to cash in on the motivational genre, but they don’t even need original material to recycle anymore. They just AI-generate it.
When I started viewing the Musk and Trump AI motivational videos, TikTok immediately began recommending other AI-generated motivational videos to me from other celebrities. I saw such videos featuring the AI-generated videos of Keanu Reeves, Cillian Murphy, Denzel Washington, Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma (which, weirdly was previously an Obama account and still has the username @obama.motivations), Sylvester Stallone, Sylvester Stallone en español, and Steve Harvey.
