A photo shared on Instagram allegedly shows Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with his arm around Tesla CEO Elon Musk as they rub their noses together. 

 

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Verdict: False

The photo was created with the use of artificial intelligence (AI), according to online tools implemented by Check Your Fact.

Fact Check:

Musk recently made a post again bringing up the idea of him and Zuckerberg engaging in a cage fight, but Musk claimed “all I hear is crickets,” according to Business Insider. Musk also filed a lawsuit against OpenAI and called Google’s chatbot “woke,” according to the outlet.

An Instagram image allegedly shows Musk and Zuckerberg with their faces close to each other, eyes closed and noses touching. Zuckerberg’s arm appears to be around Musk’s shoulder.

This is not a genuine image, but was instead digitally fabricated, according to AI-detection tools used by Check Your Fact. Maybe’s AI Art Detector found that the image has a 99 percent chance of being artificial. An additional tool called Is It AI? found the image to be 92.8 percent likely to be AI. 

There are no credible news reports documenting the two taking such a picture together. Snopes also debunked this claim. (RELATED: Did Mark Zuckerberg Claim The Lord’s Prayer Violates Meta’s Policies?)

Check Your Fact reached out to spokespeople for Tesla and Meta for comment and will update this piece accordingly if one is received from either source.

This is not the first time misinformation has circulated online. Check Your Fact recently debunked a claim the King of Denmark was waving a Palestinian flag.