TikTok Prank Uses Grimes AI Voice to Mock Elon Musk, Dupes Newsweek

Compiled by the editorial desk with reference to Rolling Stone's report and public statements from Elijah Daniel.

A viral TikTok video featuring a song that appears to be a collaboration between rapper Elijah Daniel and musician Grimes has turned out to be an AI-generated prank, and it initially fooled Newsweek into reporting it as real. The track, titled “Nuisance,” uses a synthetic version of Grimes’ voice to deliver lyrics that take aim at her ex-boyfriend, tech billionaire Elon Musk.

The clip, posted to Daniel’s TikTok account earlier this week, shows a woman who bears a striking resemblance to Grimes walking alongside the influencer. In one scene, the pair approach a white Tesla, and the lookalike flips the car off with both hands. The audio features a voice that sounds like Grimes singing, “I been that bitch, you know you wanna. I got the vision, call me Wanda. Fuck a Tesla, I like a Honda. And fuck an X, double entendre.”

Daniel, a 30-year-old former Vine star known for provocative stunts, confirmed to Rolling Stone that the voice was generated using Elf Tech, an AI tool developed by Grimes herself. He also revealed that the woman in the video is a friend who simply looks like the musician. The prank was designed to test how easily people would accept AI-generated content as genuine.

“Everything that I do is generally so outrageous and stupid that it would make sense for me to do it, but I wanted to see how many people would believe it off the bat,” Daniel told Rolling Stone. “People will just kind of automatically assume it’s real.”

The ruse worked well enough that Newsweek initially treated the video as authentic, though the publication later acknowledged the trick. Daniel’s history of attention-grabbing antics—including an arrest by the Secret Service in 2016 for throwing a glitter-covered dildo at then-candidate Donald Trump—has made him a familiar figure in online culture.

This latest stunt marks Daniel’s return to social media after a hiatus that followed the death of his mother from COVID-19 in 2021 and his own diagnosis with epilepsy. The timing and execution of the prank have reignited conversations about the ease with which AI can be used to create convincing but false media.

Why This Matters

The incident underscores a broader concern about the spread of AI-generated misinformation. Daniel himself acknowledged the implications, telling Rolling Stone, “I would love to say the majority of people are smart enough to not fall for AI misinformation, but they’re falling for human misinformation so I’m not sure adding a supercomputer behind it is going to help.”

Neither Musk nor Grimes has publicly responded to the song or the video as of this writing. However, Grimes has previously expressed enthusiasm for Elf Tech and its potential to let fans use her voice for creative projects, which may make an endorsement of this particular use more likely than a rebuke.

The episode serves as a reminder that AI tools, while innovative, can blur the lines between reality and fabrication, challenging both media outlets and the public to verify what they see and hear online.