Tesla Glide: no, Elon Musk did not invent these shoes that make you levitate

THE deepfake strikes again. On Instagram, millions of people have discovered a video in recent days where Tesla reveals futuristic shoes capable of levitating their wearer. The sequence shows a presenter gliding on stage, floating a few centimeters above the ground thanks to the mysterious “Tesla Glide”. Except none of that exists.

A sophisticated scam that exploits Musk’s notoriety

The video montage purports to document a presentation at the Indian International Consumer Expo 2025. The hoax authors took care of the details: mentions of magnetic levitation, AI control system, live demonstration. Indian media Times Now denied the information and classified the video among deepfakes, content generated by artificial intelligence that imitates real personalities.

The case is part of a massive phenomenon. Elon Musk has become the favorite target of digital scammers. Already in August 2024, our colleagues from BusinessStandard evoked the data of companies specializing in the detection of deepfakes: the boss of Tesla appears in almost a quarter of all scams of this type recorded since the end of 2023. Francesco Cavalli, co-founder of the company Sensity, describes this wave “probably the biggest deepfake-driven scam ever seen”.

The consequences go beyond simple viral buzz. Steve Beauchamp, an 82-year-old retiree, believed in a fake video where a fake Musk touted a miraculous investment in cryptocurrencies. After an initial payment of $248, he emptied his retirement account to invest a total of more than $690,000. The money then disappeared into the hands of digital scammers. This content multiplies on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, sometimes reaching tens of thousands of viewers before being deleted.

The paradox is that Tesla’s lawyers themselves invoked the threat of deepfakes in a lawsuit linked to Autopilot. Evette Pennypacker, a California judge, sharply rejected this argument in 2023, believing that it would be “deeply disturbing” to accept that a public figure can exonerate himself from his declarations by invoking possible digital falsification.

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