Were monitors at Department of Housing and Urban Development hacked? AI video of Trump and Elon Musk goes viral online

An AI-generated video featuring Donald Trump and Elon Musk was displayed on monitors throughout the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) headquarters in Washington, DC. As employees returned to work on Monday, February 24, 2025, a clip showed the President licking Musk's feet. A superimposed caption read:

"Long Live The Real King."

Journalist Jeff Stein from the Washington Post reported on social media that hackers had breached HUD's televisions, as reported by Reuters.

Independent journalist Marisa Kabas, citing an "agency source," reported on Bluesky that the video played on a loop for nearly five minutes throughout the building. Unable to remove the video, the staff had to manually unplug all the TVs.

Further details regarding this development remain unconfirmed.

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"LONG LIVE THE KING!"— Trump took to Truth Social after slashing NYC's congestion pricing program

According to an article by Business Insider, officials from the American Federation of Government Employees union confirmed that the video was shown in the office. Footage circulating on social media shows at least two separate monitors playing the clip.

The text "Long Live The Real King" displayed in the video referenced Trump's recent post on social media where he likened himself to a king. Last week, the president took down the city's congestion pricing program (tolls during peak hours in certain areas to raise money for mass transit). At the time, he wrote on Truth Social:

"CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. “Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!"

The White House's official X account shared the statement with a fake cover of Time magazine. The cover features a portrait of Trump smiling with a crown on his head. An in-image caption read, "long live the king."

Kacey Lovett, spokesperson for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told the outlet:

"Another waste of taxpayer dollars and resources. Appropriate action will be taken for all involved."

Monday marked the first day of the Trump administration's "return to office" executive order, which calls for a ban on remote work. This ban comes as the Washington Post, citing an "internal memo," reported that the administration's Musk-led DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) intends to cut HUD's workforce by half.

Tensions escalated over the weekend between federal staff and the Trump administration when Musk's DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) emailed workers asking them to submit five bullet points on what they accomplished over the past week or risk termination. The subject line read, "What did you do last week?"

According to Business Insider, despite the warning, the OPM informed government agency officials that compliance was voluntary. In response, several federal agencies instructed their workers not to respond to the edict, while some, such as the Social Security Administration, requested that they do respond.

Explaining the move, Trump, during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, stated:

"What he’s (Musk) doing is saying, ‘Are you actually working?' And then, if you don’t answer, like, you’re sort of semi-fired or you’re fired, because a lot of people aren’t answering because they don’t even exist."

POTUS explained that DOGE suggested that federal paychecks were being issued to non-existent employees. However, no evidence was provided to support this.

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Neither Donald Trump, Elon Musk, nor an administration spokesperson has publicly commented on the AI-generated clip.