Messages are circulating online that an 18th-century painting “predicted” a dinner involving Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but the old painting in question is generated by artificial intelligence.
What happened?
On November 18, the social media account @boneGPT on X (archived) shared a post featuring a collage of two images. On the right was a real photo of a meeting between Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while on the left was an alleged 18th-century painting that supposedly “predicted” this meeting.
“This 1721 painting by Deitz Nuützen predicted the Trump-Elon-RFK McDonald dinner,” the author says in his post.
At the time of publishing our original debunking, this post had 5.5 million views and more than 9 thousand shares on X (1, 2, 3, 4) and on pro-Russian Telegram channels, including “Evil ecologist” (Злой эколог, archived), “Keepers and doers” (Хранители и вершители, archived), and Gura Anton (archived).
The author of the latter, a self-proclaimed “journalist who tells the truth,” writes commenting on 18th-century “art piece”: “No comment from me. Let me remind you that Trump and Musk got Tesla’s work and his time travel.”
Analysis
Margo Martin, Trump’s Deputy Director of Communications, shared the original photo on X late at night on November 17. The image shows Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr., Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Mike Johnson eating fast food after attending a UFC fight in New York. On November 18, Donald Trump Jr. posted the same photo on his verified Instagram page with a caption, “Make America Healthy Again starts TOMORROW”
The so-called “prediction painting” also surfaced on X later that same day, Monday, November 18. We attempted to locate the painting using a reverse image search but found no results. Additionally, we found no information about the supposed artist or evidence that “Deitz Nuutzen” existed in the 18th century. All search results for “Deitz Nuutzen” or “DeitzNuutzen painter” simply lead back to the original post by @boneGPT.
We did, however, find an X user @DeitzNuutzen, who also shared the post by @boneGPT. This user’s bio reads, “barely sentient memetics since 1721,” which directly references the year attributed to the circulated painting.
The X user @boneGPT, who initially shared the painting featuring the dinner scene. Their profile bio states, “founder mode // AI & America,” suggesting a focus on artificial intelligence. This strongly indicates that the so-called “18th-century painting” was, in fact, AI-generated.
The profile description also contains a link to a YouTube channel filled with video content created by AI. The author includes this information in the description of the videos: “It’s all AI, even the concept for the video. It was created by ChatGPT.”
Evidence supporting the claim that the circulated “painting” was AI-generated includes the precise replication of the composition, the positions of the dinner participants, the shape of the furniture, and even the identical placement of Elon Musk’s fingers.
Finally, on November 22, the user @boneGPT confirmed (archived) that the painting was indeed generated by artificial intelligence.
“I did the Reuters interview because there is something important I had to say. I can’t tell you if any of this will be included or not but here’s was I said: Every AI was able to tell Deitz Nuützen was a joke, but 50% of people fell for it,” the post says.
So, who is Deitz Nuutzen?
In reality, the name of the artist supposedly behind the painting is a homophone and a reference to a popular prank-meme in the U.S. called “catching people with deez nuts” that first appeared in a Dr. Dre’s 1992 album The Chronic.
“Deez nuts” later resurfaced in 2015 in a comedic sketch by internet comedian WelvenDaGreat. In 2016, during the U.S. presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, a viral candidate named after this internet meme (archived) became the most successful independent presidential candidate in two decades.
Conclusion: Fake
Author: Vasylyna Haviak
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