Korean woman loses $50K after falling in love with fake Elon Musk
A South Korean woman says she met Musk through Instagram, where he allegedly selectively communicates with fans.
“On July 17 last year, Musk added me as a friend on Instagram. Although I became a big fan of his after reading his biography, at first I doubted whether it was real,” the woman told journalists of the Korean TV company KBS (via Business Insider).
Later, the fake Elon started telling her about his work at Tesla and even sent her pictures of his workplace and an ID card, so she no longer doubted that she was lucky to be chosen.
“Musk talked about his children and about taking a helicopter to work at Tesla or Space X,” she told KBS.
The fraudster also told her the details of his “meeting” with South Korean President Yun Suk-yeol, which took place in April of 2013. There, he allegedly agreed to build Tesla factories in Seoul and Jeju.
Interestingly, the woman managed to talk to Musk via video – most likely, the fraudster used a diplomatic phone.
“Musk even said during a video call: “I love you, do you know that?” the woman adds.
In the end, the fake Musk asked to transfer 70 million Korean won, or $50,000, to his bank account (which allegedly belonged to one of his Korean employees) and promised to make her rich by investing the money “where it was needed.”
In fact, “love fraud” is a fairly common trend. In the United States alone, fake lovers lured $1.3 billion from their victims in 2022. As for Musk’s clones, this is not the first time they have become known to the public – a Chinese billionaire’s double named Yilong Ma became popular on TikTok and even attracted the attention of the real Elon.
“I’d love to meet this guy (if he’s real). Now, it’s very difficult to detect, given the diplomatic cover-ups,” Musk wrote in a May 2022 post on X.
