US govt investigates AI video of Trump sucking Elon Musk’s toes

An AI-generated video depicting US President Donald Trump sucking billionaire Elon Musk’s toes that played on screens inside the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) headquarters has reportedly triggered a government investigation. 

HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett told The New York Times that the incident was an “abuse of taxpayer resources” and confirmed authorities were working to identify and fire those responsible.

HAHA. The monitors at the Housing and Urban Development building were hacked this morning and displayed an AI video of Donald Trump kissing Elon Musk’s feet, alongside the message: “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING.” pic.twitter.com/FPT6jvqBF1

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) February 24, 2025

The brief video, which appeared on HUD’s hallway screens on Monday, included a caption that read, “Long Live the Real King.” The phrase was meant to ridicule Trump’s February 19 post on Truth Social, celebrating his administration’s decision to block New York City’s congestion pricing plan. 

AI video pops up after federal workers return to in-person working program

The footage was looped repeatedly inside HUD’s offices on the same day all employees were required to return to in-person work, against the backdrop of Trump’s executive order to end remote work for federal workers. 

According to sources familiar with the situation, HUD officials were initially unable to determine how the department’s monitors were hacked and resorted to unplugging several devices to stop the video from playing.

The Democratic-led House Committee on Financial Services seemed to approve of the stunt, owing to their comment on X, saying, “Not all heroes wear capes.”

Not all heroes🦸 wear capes… https://t.co/742lgFJZyo

— House Committee on Financial Services – Democrats (@USHouseFSC) February 24, 2025

Last weekend, Musk ordered federal employees to submit weekly summaries of their work accomplishments or risk being considered as having resigned. The directive required employees to submit around five bullet points outlining their work. 

Yet, several cabinet secretaries, including those involved in national security operations, advised their departments to ignore the directive due to the “sensitive nature” of their work.

At HUD, some employees were worried about whether they were required to comply with Musk’s directive, but as of Tuesday, no agency-wide guidance had been issued. The Tesla CEO said on X yesterday that those who failed to answer the email “will be fired at the president’s discretion.”

Is Musk overshadowing Trump?

In a joint interview hosted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity on February 18, Trump referred to Musk as an enforcer of his administration’s policies, dismissing any allegations that the latter is “pulling the strings.” He tapped the Tesla CEO to oversee the operations of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) office, meant to cut-down wasteful government expenditure. 

“You write an executive order, and you think it’s done, you send it out, it doesn’t get done. It doesn’t get implemented,” Trump said in the interview. “And some guy that maybe didn’t want to do it, all of a sudden, he’s signing it.”

The president admitted in the Fox News interview that he was not acquainted with the billionaire until recently.

“I knew him a little bit through the White House originally,” Trump said. “But I didn’t know him before that.”

Still, liberal policymakers see Musk’s role as Trump’s de facto enforcer as an overreach of executive power. They believe the richest man in the world is the one running the government, and President Trump is just a yes man to what he is doing. 

“It’s a level of incompetence that we’ve never seen before in government. To say that Elon Musk is not running the United States right now is really a fallacy,” Senator Doug Jones told NBC News.

A February 16-18 survey from Statista showed that out of 1,603 adults, 59% felt DOGE and co-founder Musk have “a lot” of perceived influence on the US President. Out of the figure, 42% of citizens aligned with the GOP party see Elon’s political influence on Washington as too much, but the number is much more amplified on the democratic side, clocking 80%.

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