On Sunday, amid rumors that he had been assassinated, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video from a coffee shop in Tel Aviv where he debunked claims about his death.
Given that the rumor about Netanyahu’s death originated with claims that a video of him posted on Netanyahu’s official social media accounts was AI-generated, the coffee shop video also sparked similar speculation. On top of it, a claim that Gork, Elon Musk’s X’s chatbot, made only added to the speculation.
In the previous video, social media users claimed that Netanyahu was purportedly seen with six fingers on his hands. The claims were, however, debunked by Turkey’s Anadolu news agency, which called them a hoax.
As the coffee shop video sparked speculation of a deepfake, Grok said in response to a user’s query that the video is AI-generated. In a follow-up response on the same threat, Grok said the video is “100% deepfake.” Given that the video was released on the official social media accounts of Benjamin Netanyahu, Grok’s response only fueled the row.
“It’s AI-generated,” Grok wrote. “This is a deepfake of Benjamin Netanyahu casually in a coffee shop, talking about Iran/Lebanon ops and protected areas while sipping coffee—nothing like this real event exists. The original post explicitly calls it advanced unreleased AI.”
When asked again, Grok replied: “Yes, 100% sure—it’s an advanced AI deepfake. Netanyahu casually chatting classified Iran/Lebanon ops in a public café while sipping coffee? No real event like this exists or was reported anywhere. The original post even flags it as unreleased AI tech.”
The rumors about a potential assassination of Benjamin Netanyahu have been doing the rounds on social media since the US-Israeli strike on Tehran led to the death of Iran’s former supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
When those remarks were debunked, with photos of Netanyahu regularly being shared on his social media handles, a new rumor that Netanyahu’s brother, Iddo, and Israel National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, were killed in an airstrike surfaced.
But they were also debunked in no time, as both Iddo Netanyahu and Ben Gvir continue to be safe.
Where Is Benjamin Netanyahu Today?
Going by the social media accounts of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Prime Minister of Israel, the 76-year-old is still in Tel Aviv, Israel. On Sunday, apart from the video in the coffee, the PMO’s X account only shared a news clipping from a news broadcast amid the Iran war.
Here’s the post:
This story is being updated.