Employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had a rather unusual start to their Monday morning. Instead of diving into their usual work of “ensuring Americans have access to fair, affordable housing,” they were greeted with an unexpected and bizarre sight on the office TVs — a video featuring President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk in a highly unexpected and deeply strange scenario. The video, generated by AI, showed Trump licking Musk’s toes with the text, “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING” flashing across the screen.
According to a source at HUD who spoke to Wired, the video was playing on a loop on a television screen inside the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building in Washington, DC. They also mentioned that the employees were left with no choice but to manually turn off each TV in order to stop the unusual broadcast.
What sparked the toe-licking video?
The bizarre video appeared to reference a Truth Social post made by Trump just last week. In the post, Trump had captioned, “Long Live the King!” which was likely the twisted inspiration behind the strange AI-generated content. According to Kasey Lovett, a HUD spokesperson, “Another waste of taxpayer dollars and resources. Appropriate action will be taken for all involved.” The identity of the prankster(s) remains a mystery, but this isn't the first time similar AI-generated videos have surfaced. Since last year, social media has been flooded with deepfake-style footage of Trump kissing Musk’s feet, suggesting that this may be part of a larger trend of bizarre political humour.
{{/usCountry}}The bizarre video appeared to reference a Truth Social post made by Trump just last week. In the post, Trump had captioned, “Long Live the King!” which was likely the twisted inspiration behind the strange AI-generated content. According to Kasey Lovett, a HUD spokesperson, “Another waste of taxpayer dollars and resources. Appropriate action will be taken for all involved.” The identity of the prankster(s) remains a mystery, but this isn't the first time similar AI-generated videos have surfaced. Since last year, social media has been flooded with deepfake-style footage of Trump kissing Musk’s feet, suggesting that this may be part of a larger trend of bizarre political humour.
{{/usCountry}}Interestingly, this incident occurred just days after leaked documents revealed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project, which was reportedly planning to lay off 4,000 employees at HUD which is in the midst of dealing with a US housing crisis.
Netizens react
As expected, the video quickly became an internet sensation with netizens tripping over themselves to comment on the AI-generated video with one user saying, “Now, THIS is a proper use of AI.” Another user cheekily replied, “Oh that isn’t AI, it’s 100% real, we’ve all seen it.” Another user lamented, “What a terrible day to have eyes,” while one more quipped, “Good to see the resistance has the kind of skill that matters these days.” Other users were clearly enjoying the spectacle, with comments like, “I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when Trump saw this for the first time. You know he’s fuming about it,” and “Some heroes don’t wear capes.” It seems this moment truly captured the internet's chaotic energy.
Whether the prank was a commentary on that or just a random, humorous stunt is unclear, but one thing’s for sure — the internet won’t forget this anytime soon.