Do authentic side-by-side photos of Barron Trump and Justin Trudeau show that the two bear an uncanny resemblance? No, that's not true: Neither of the images used in the comparison of the two men is real. The OpenAI verification tool detected an invisible watermark embedded in each image, meaning the images were made with OpenAI tools. The AI-generated image of Barron Trump was based on a real photo taken at the UFC Freedom 250 event but changed in several ways.
The fake images appeared in a post (archived here) published on X by @LucasSa56947288 on June 17, 2026. It was captioned:
Notice the difference between Barron Trump and Justin Trudeau!
Do they look alike?
This is the image included with the post:
(Image source: post by @LucasSa56947288 on X.)
A reverse image search with Google Lens for the image of Barron Trump (above left) points to a real photo (pictured below) that appears on Getty Images -- though not an exact match (archived here). The photo is captioned:
UFC Freedom 250: Topuria v Gaethje
WASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 14: Barron Trump attends the UFC Freedom 250 event on the South Lawn at the White House on June 14, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC)
Key differences are that Barron Trump's parents, Donald and Melania Trump, who appear in the foreground of the original, were removed, as was another person visible in the background. The blurry pattern of the crowd in the background was simplified and the blue tones of the original lighting were changed to make a warmer skin tone.
(Image source: post by USA Today on Facebook.)
Lead Stories uploaded each of the two images to the verification tool at OpenAI. The tool found that both images were generated with OpenAI tools (pictured below). Details provided with both reports mentioned the presence of Google's DeepMind watermark called SynthID (archived here), which identifies AI-generated content, and the absence of any Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity credentials (C2PA) (archived here), stating:
SynthID detected
We found a SynthID watermark that originated from OpenAI.
Content Credentials not detectedWe did not find a trusted C2PA manifest originating from OpenAI.
(Image source: OpenAI.)
(Image source: OpenAI.)
