Doppelganger or deepfake?: Internet puzzled by viral video of Elon Musk lookalike

File photo of Elon Musk. AP

The online world can really rattle our brain at times, especially by blurring the lines between actual reality and fiction. One such video which has caught the attention of internet users and has sparked a debate about its authenticity, is of a man who bears a striking resemblance to the Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

In a video that has now gone viral, a doppelganger of Elon Musk can be seen standing next to a car. Meanwhile, internet users have been divided in their opinion. While some believe that the man is a doppelganger of Musk and actually exists, others have said that it is just a trick and a video that is cleverly made using deepfake technology.

As per New York Post, the thirteen-second clip was originally posted on TikTok where the self-proclaimed doppelganger can be seen mimicking the Tesla Chief when the camera pans on him and he is being recorded. The short video was also shared on Facebook by a Chinese user who captioned it as ‘Elon Musk’.

Watch the video here:

Since it has been shared, the Facebook clip has gained more than 1,800 shares and has racked up 890 likes on the social media platform.

The video has raised questions on whether it is real or not and has received hundreds of comments from stunned users. Many users posted laughing emoticons on the video and some users hilariously named the doppelganger as Yi Long Musk.

A number of people were however convinced that the video was a result of deepfake technology, a synthetic media tool that helps to alter videos digitally, enabling users to replace an existing person’s image or video with someone else’s.

On viewing the Elon Musk clip, some social media users wrote that the clip was a deepfake video as a small glitch near the eyes and mouth of the doppelganger was visible when he spoke.

Elon Musk is not the only celebrity reported to have a doppelganger. Previously, videos of many celebrity lookalikes, created through deepfake, have gone viral on the internet. In March this year, a video of American actor Tom Cruise had gone viral on TikTok. It was later known that the video was made through deepfake.