Did Elon Musk discuss communities "putting up blue tarps all over the roofs" in an effort to defend against lasers setting fires in a podcast interview with Joe Rogan, as suggested by a video on Instagram? No, that's not true: The clip added altered video and audio to a real 2020 interview, including AI-generated imagery, to make it seem Musk was discussing this unfounded conspiracy theory. The video's original poster, who first shared the clip on Instagram, included an "entertainment purposes" disclaimer.
A version of the claim was shown in a video (archived here) on X on December 24, 2024, with a caption that read:
Hmm 🤔
This is how the post looked at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken Tue Dec 24 08:40:00 2024 UTC)
In the video, Musk appears to say the following:
Um, they're putting up blue tarps all over the roofs of their houses... blue tarps, brother, all over, all their houses, and they're building it right now. They, um, they know something is going to happen ...
Do you remember Maui? Remember the late like, the um, theory how it was a laser that caused the fire but only the stuff that were blue, blue color - the blue colored cars the blue colored houses were not burnt ...
Brother, China knows something that the rest of the world does not know ...
Originally posted video has 'entertainment' disclaimer
The video on X has the Instagram watermark @radiance_rhythms, an account that posted the video on August 16, 2024, with the disclaimer:
For entertainment purposes only. Not meant to be taken seriously. Any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental. Don't worry, it's all just for fun.
A screenshot of that post is shown below:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken Thu Dec 26 18:54:39 2024 UTC)
The account also features many other altered videos featuring Rogan and Musk that make unfounded claims, most of which began with, "Do you know ..."
Authentic video was altered using AI
The video at the center of this debunk was altered from an original interview with Musk on the "Joe Rogan Experience," episode 1470, posted to YouTube on May 7, 2020 (archived here). At no point in the original two-hour interview did Musk discuss "blue tarps."
The online AI detection tool TrueMedia determined that the video showed "substantial evidence of manipulation" (archived here), noting in particular that there was "potential AI manipulation of faces present in images and videos, as in the case of face swaps and face reenactment."
Those results are shown below:
(Source: TrueMedia screenshot taken Thu Dec 26 17:13:36 2024 UTC)
TrueMedia also noted "unusual patterns and discrepancies in facial features," as Musk and Rogan's mouth movements do not align with the words they are speaking. The audio was generated using an AI program or cloning, according to TrueMedia.
'Blue theory' is an unfounded conspiracy
The blue roof theory is an unproven conspiracy theory that suggests items of this color will not burn, supposedly preventing them from being impacted by supposed government lasers used to set fire to or destroy communities intentionally.
As Lead Stories previously reported:
After the August 8, 2023, fires in Lahaina, on Maui, Hawaii, there were images circulating that showed some blue items that had not burned. This gave rise to a baseless conspiracy that the Maui fires had been ignited by directed energy weapons (DEW) that had been tuned in such a way they would avoid burning blue things.
The nonprofit group Centre for Information Resilience reports (archived here) that the "blue theory" conspiracy was one of the most common misinformation tropes that circulated online following the 2023 Hawaiian wildfires and before that, the California wildfires in 2018.
Material being rolled onto roof is commonly used
A reverse image search of a screenshot of women rolling out blue material on a roof returned a post shared to X on August 30, 2023, (archived here) under the Google-translated caption:
🔴 People in China started to cover their roofs with blue tarpaulins after increasing tensions with the USA.
However, the material shown is a peel-and-stick underlayment used to repair or replace roofs.
Read more
Other Lead Stories fact checks involving claims about Elon Musk can be read here.
Lead Stories has also debunked various claims related to Joe Rogan, which can be read here.
