Simulated Musk, Zuckerberg voices are speaking from hacked crosswalk buttons

Crosswalk buttons in at least three California cities appear to have been hacked this weekend to give them the seemingly AI-generated voices of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In videos posted online, the apparent voice of Musk begs listeners to be his friend, or that of Zuckerberg brags about “undermining democracy” […]

Apr 13, 2025 - 22:01

Simulated Musk, Zuckerberg voices are speaking from hacked crosswalk buttons

Crosswalk buttons in at least three California cities appear to have been hacked this weekend to give them the seemingly AI-generated voices of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. In videos posted online, the apparent voice of Musk begs listeners to be his friend, or that of Zuckerberg brags about “undermining democracy” and “cooking our grandparents’ brains with AI slop.”

A Palo Alto, California city spokesperson told Palo Alto Online that city employees “determined that 12 downtown intersections were impacted,” and have disabled the crosswalks’ voice features pending repairs. The signals otherwise work as they should, they told the outlet. The hack seemed to have taken place on Friday, the person said.

The same thing is happening in Redwood City, where a deputy city manager told The San Francisco Chronicle that the city is investigating and attempting to resolve the issue there. Crosswalk buttons in Menlo Park are also reportedly affected.

The voice features of these buttons are used to guide people with difficulty seeing, letting them know when to “wait” and when the walk sign on the other end of the street has turned on. It’s hard to tell how much, if at all, the simulated voices interfere with that, but they seem to be playing in addition to, rather than instead of the built-in safety notices, at least in some videos of the phenomenon.

Here are some videos with the simulated voice of Musk, along with my transcriptions below each: