Did clips shared widely in May 2025 authentically show Elon Musk and former CNN anchor Don Lemon arguing during an interview? No, that's note true: The video included audio that was fake, and most likely AI-generated. The clips added the fake audio and lip movements to authentic footage of a real discussion between Musk and Lemon that was published in March 2024.
One particularly prominent clip appeared to show Lemon accusing Musk of "ego-driven chaos", to which the X, Tesla and SpaceX owner replied by reducing Lemon's achievements to "reading headlines off a teleprompter". The title of the clip, posted to YouTube on May 22, 2025 (archived here) was "The Lemons OWN GOTCHA GETS HIM FIRED ON AIR..."
The following is a complete transcript of the fake audio:
Lemon: You call it "clickbait" but people are listening, Elon. You're laying off thousands while buying billion-dollar social platforms, flying rockets and tweeting memes about "Woke Mind Virus". How can you preach responsibility when your actions look like ego-driven chaos to the rest of the world?
Musk: "Ego-driven chaos"? Don, I've created tens of thousands of jobs, launched rockets, revolutionized electric cars, made space flight reusable, all while you read headlines off a teleprompter. If that's chaos, maybe we need more of it. I build the future, you just react to it, usually late and wrong.
The clip can be watched below:
The account that posted it, PodLord1, also posted several other similar clips, in May 2025, which appeared to contain other moments of conflict between Lemon and Musk:
(Source: YouTube screenshot)
All of those videos contained fake audio and fake lip movements, and some carried "Altered or synthetic content" labels, while others -- including the widely-shared "ego-driven chaos" clip highlighted above -- did not.
The clips contained fake audio and lip movements added to authentic video taken from a real interview which Lemon conducted with Musk, and which was published on March 18, 2024:
(Source: YouTube screenshot)
That interview contained moments of tension, but it did not contain the lengthy, mutual personal attacks shown in the fake May 2025 clips.
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For previous Lead Stories debunks about Elon Musk, click here.
