If you’ve been forced to spend time around conservatives at any point in the last several years, you’re probably aware that they live in a completely different version of reality than normal people. It’s impossible to keep up with all the insane things they believe, and unfortunately, the latest obviously fake rumor involves cars. Specifically, the claim that Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky’s wife bought a Bugatti Tourbillon, which only just got unveiled and won’t enter production for another two years.
That, of course, didn’t happen, but you just know it’s going to come up at your family’s 4th of July celebration. You, a normal enough person, are going to do something innocuous like grabbing another ice-cold Coors to wash down that pulled-pork sandwich, and your crazy uncle is going to randomly go off about how we’re wasting billions of dollars helping Ukraine, and Zelensky’s just using it to make himself rich. His wife even bought the new Bugatti! They’re so corrupt, so we should just let Russia win.
Pushing back with facts will probably just cause him to pivot to something else like Hunter Biden’s dong or how unfair everyone is to Trump, but you can at least try. Fact-checker David Puente has a great breakdown of the rumor over on Twitter, and wouldn’t you know it, this anti-Zelensky nonsense is almost definitely Russian propaganda. It all started on a French-language website called Verite Cachee that’s full of seemingly AI-generated pro-Russia content.
The post claims to show an invoice for the order and includes a video of the salesperson from Bugatti Paris announcing the alleged sale. Except the video is a deepfake, the sale didn’t happen, and even Bugatti Paris has said the invoice is fake and doesn’t look anything like a legit invoice. Go read the thread if you want a more thorough understanding of all the reasons this rumor is completely made up, but you really don’t have to.
Just tell Uncle Rico the video is a deepfake, and Bugatti says the sale never happened. If you shut him down hard enough, you might get a few seconds of silence before he starts ranting again, but at least that’ll give you a chance to finally crack open that cold one. Trust me. You’re going to need it.
H/T: Motor1