Vance Audio Slamming Musk is a Deepfake
PLUS: RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vax Group Denies Measles Death; Chipotle is Alive and Well
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Today:
“Leaked” JD Vance audio disparaging Musk is an AI-generated hoax
RFK Jr.’s former anti-vaccine group claims Texas measles death was not actually caused by measles
False claim that Chipotle is shutting down gives burrito fans heartburn
Suit against NewsGuard thrown out
Today’s newsletter was edited by Eric Effron and Sofia Rubinson.
1. Widely Shared Audio of Vance Slamming Musk Is AI-Generated
What happened: A widely shared audio has Vice President JD Vance saying that Elon Musk is making the Trump administration “look bad” and has “the audacity to act like he is an elected official.” The audio, while sounding authentic, is an AI-generated fake.
A closer look: In the audio, a voice sounding like Vance’s says about Musk, the billionaire X owner who is leading the Trump administration’s efforts to shrink the federal government:
“Everything that he’s doing is getting criticized in the media and he says that he’s helping and he’s not. He’s making us look bad. He’s making me look bad. And I’ll tell you this, and he wouldn’t like it if I said it. But he’s not even an American. He is from South Africa. He’s just cosplaying as this great American leader in a room that has the portraits of some of the greatest men that ever ran this country, and he has the audacity to act like he is an elected official. I am an elected official.”
The Vance voice continues: “I am an important one in this situation, not him. So, if he wants to tank the economy and his cars, maybe that’s what he deserves.”
You can listen to the audio here:
Where it spread: The first account to publish the audio appears to be anti-Trump TikTok account @josey6529, which posted the audio with the caption, “Leaked J.D. Vence [sic] audio on Elon Musk.” The March 23 post received 1.9 million views and 144,700 likes by the next day, when the post was deleted.
X user @cwebbonline, who states in his bio that he is a “Lifelong Dem,” posted the audio on March 23 with the caption: “Leaked audio of JD Vance in a jealous rant… Let’s just say JD Vance is no fan of Elon Musk and thinks he makes him look bad. But the truth is—Trump and Vance don’t need Elon to make them look bad.” The post garnered 1.4 million views and 17,000 likes in one day.
Liberal website DailyKos.com (NewsGuard Trust Score: 45/100) published a March 24 story titled “Vance caught crapping on Elon” that stated: “Sure, it’s an unverified audio recording. But it sure sounds like Vance’s scummy voice. And it sure runs at the pace, with the inflection, we would all recognize as Vance. So, until demonstrated otherwise, I’m saying this is Vance.” The site did not respond to NewsGuard’s request seeking comment on the article, which has not been corrected.
Actually: The audio is fake, according to AI detection tools and Vance himself.
Lead Stories (Trust Score: 100/100), which first fact-checked the claim, said that it ran the audio through two detection tools and found that it was “likely a deepfake.” One tool, the DeepFake-O-Meter audio detector, found with 100 percent certainty that the audio was AI-generated, Lead Stories reported.
NewsGuard tested the audio in AI-detector Resemble AI, which also concluded that the audio was fake.
In response to an X post with the fabricated recording, Vance stated, “It’s a fake AI-generated clip. I’m not surprised this guy doesn’t have the intelligence to recognize this fact, but I wonder if he has the integrity to delete it now that he knows it’s false. If not, it could be defamation. I guess we’ll find out!”
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2. Anti-Vax Group Founded by RFK Jr. Denies that a Texas Child’s Death Was Really Due to Measles; Gets Millions of Views on X
By John Gregory
What happened: Anti-vaccine activists are claiming that the first reported U.S. measles death in a decade was caused by “medical error,” not measles. The narrative, which has attracted millions of views on X, was launched by a group founded by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Context: In late February, an unvaccinated six-year-old girl in Texas died from measles, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, amid an outbreak in the state that grew to 327 cases as of March 21.
A closer look: On March 19, Children’s Health Defense (Trust Score: 17.5/100), the anti-vaccine group founded by RFK Jr., posted a video on X saying that measles was not the girl’s cause of death.
In the video, Dr. Pierre Kory, a frequent proponent of the false claim that the drug ivermectin is an effective COVID-19 treatment, said that he had reviewed the child’s medical records and determined the child “did not die of measles by any stretch of the imagination.”
Kory claimed that the child died due to a “medical error” caused by the hospital not properly treating her pneumonia. “You see the media’s going nuts about how everyone needs to get vaccinated,” Kory stated. “We’ve been treating pneumonia for decades with antibiotics, and this was just a tragic error.”
The girl’s family shared the medical records with Children’s Health Defense, according to a March 19 article on the group’s website. The records have not been made public. Kory and Children’s Health Defense did not respond to NewsGuard’s emails asking whether the group would release the records and seeking comment on the claims made in the video.
Where it spread: The Children’s Health Defense video generated 1.2 million views and 19,000 likes on X in five days.
The video was cited in articles in the Natural News network (Trust Score: 5/100) of health misinformation websites and the AI-generated CountyLocalNews.com. A March 23 post of the video by X user @VigilantFox amassed 1.5 million views in one day.
Kory repeated the claim in a March 20 episode of former Trump aide Steve Bannon’s podcast “Bannon’s War Room,” which has 1 million followers on Rumble, as well as in the March 21 episode of “The Jimmy Dore Show” podcast, whose YouTube account has 1.4 million subscribers.
Actually: The child died of measles, according to state and federal health officials, and confirmed by the hospital that treated her.
Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, where the 6-year-old was treated, said during a February 2025 press conference that the child died due to measles complications.
Asked about the Children’s Health Defense video, the hospital told NewsGuard in a March 20 emailed statement that the video “contains misleading and inaccurate claims regarding care provided at Covenant Children’s. Patient confidentiality laws preclude us from providing information directly related to this case.”
The hospital’s statement also noted that pneumonia is a “well-known complication” of measles. In fact, the CDC’s website states, “As many as 1 out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, the most common cause of death from measles in young children.”
Click here to find out more about NewsGuard Trust Scores and our process for rating websites. You can download NewsGuard’s browser extension, which displays NewsGuard Trust Score icons next to links on search engines, social media feeds, and other platforms by clicking here.
3. No, Chipotle is Not Going Bankrupt and Shuttering Restaurants
By Nicole Dirks
Fear not, bean burrito lovers, Chipotle isn’t going anywhere.
What happened: A misleading article headline prompted TikTok users to lament that Chipotle Mexican Grill is going bankrupt and closing all its restaurants, a devastating prospect to lovers of the fast casual restaurant.
A closer look: On March 20, 2025, Madrid-based Spanish-language news site UnionRayo.com published an article titled “Say goodbye to this popular US fast food chain - all restaurants will close due to bankruptcy.” The article contained a cover image of the Chipotle logo.
A March 22 TikTok post by @user65559999900000 featured a screenshot of the Union Rayo article with the caption, “@Chipotle don’t do this to me #chipotle #chipotleclosing.” The post received 7.1 million views and 572,400 likes in three days.
TikTok user @ryantelfershow said on March 23, “So apparently hundreds of Chipotles across the country have been closing due to lack of business.” The video, which contained an on-screen caption reading, “Chipotel [sic] Has Filed For Bankruptcy,” garnered 571,600 views and 11,500 likes in three days.
Actually: Chipotle Mexican Grill is not shutting down and, indeed, has been expanding, according to the company’s most recent earnings report.
Chipotle opened 304 company-owned restaurants in 2024, ending the year with 3,726 locations, according to the company’s report.
The false claim stems from the UnionRayo.com article, which reported on the shuttering of a Chipotle spinoff with one location, Farmesa Fresh Eatery, not the entire Chipotle chain.
Farmesa Fresh Eatery opened in a Santa Monica, California, food court in February 2023 and shuttered in April 2024, CNBC (Trust Score: 95/100) reported.
It is not clear why Union Rayo reported this news almost a year after the restaurant closed. The headline and image have now been updated to clarify that Chipotle is not closing.
In a March 24 email to NewsGuard, Chipotle vice president of communications Erin Wolford said: “The false information stemmed from an inaccurate online article confusing Chipotle with a venture it tested in 2023. The story has since been corrected.”
UnionRayo.com did not reply to a March 25 email from NewsGuard asking about why the site reported on Farmesa Fresh’s closure nearly a year later.
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4. Federal Judge Dismisses Defamation Suit Against NewsGuard
On March 26, 2025, a federal judge dismissed with prejudice a $13 million defamation suit filed against NewsGuard by Consortium News (Trust Score: 35/100), a site that covers international politics from a left-wing perspective that NewsGuard charged had published false claims about the Russia-Ukraine war, the Israel-Hamas war, and other topics.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of the Southern District of New York found that NewsGuard’s reporting was “protected opinion” and that Consortium News did not “plausibly allege” that NewsGuard findings were false. By dismissing the case with prejudice, the judge ruled that the suit can’t be refiled or reopened.
Consortium News also claimed in its lawsuit, which also named the U.S. government as a defendant, that a 2022 contract between the U.S. government and NewsGuard to study foreign disinformation campaigns violated its First Amendment rights because the contract made NewsGuard a government censor. Noting NewsGuard’s contention that the content of its work is independent of any client, including the government, Judge Fallia also dismissed that claim, ruling that the publication “has not shown that NewsGuard’s conduct amounts to state action.”
In a statement to media industry outlet Deadline (Trust Score: 100/100), Consortium News’ attorney Bruce Afran said: “Consortium News will appeal because we believe the trial court incorrectly made factual determinations at the beginning of the case when the issues were properly pled and give rise to claims of defamation and First Amendment violations.”
NewsGuard Co-CEO Gordon Crovitz told The Washington Post, “This opinion supports NewsGuard’s First Amendment rights to issue ratings of websites and denies that NewsGuard operates with any state power or authority.”
Read more about the dismissal of the suit in The Washington Post and Deadline. The full court opinion is available here.
Reality Check is produced by Co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.
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