AI ‘Deepfakes’ Weaponized to Spread Many False Epstein Files Claims
After the DOJ disclosures, mass confusion ensued as online actors used fake images to spread misinformation about Zohran Mamdani, Epstein’s reported death
TLDR
Since the DOJ published the “Epstein files” in January, social media posts sharing AI-generated images to advance false claims about their contents have achieved viral online spread.
Fake images have been presented to attack a range of political figures and to rehash prior conspiracy theories, often accelerating the spread of false narratives they support and manipulating public sentiments on social media.
In one example, false narratives supported by AI-generated images appeared to inspire offline protest activity.
Background
In January 2026, and compelled by US Congress, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) released millions of documents related to the federal criminal investigations surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, a child sex offender whose reported suicide while awaiting trial in 2019 has animated countless viral conspiracy theories online.1
Online interest in the millions of files released in January, among them emails, flight logs, images, and videos implicating global elites (some of whom have since resigned or been arrested),2 3 has spanned the political spectrum. As social media users shared their outrage, speculation, and various conspiracy theories, individual and state actors capitalized on the uncertainty, creating “deepfake” AI images alleged to be real photos from DOJ disclosures to spread false narratives and misinformation.
Since the January release, media outlets reported that the DOJ withheld millions of additional documents, some of which allegedly contain claims that President Trump sexually abused a child, driving further interest online. Members of Congress are currently investigating the omitted materials.4
Methodology
Open Measures sought to better understand the role that fake images had in the spread of false claims about the contents of the Epstein files across the platforms we monitor. Our researchers reviewed recent news media coverage to identify two debunked narratives about the Epstein files whose spread across social media was reportedly aided by AI-generated images:
Claims that Epstein maintained an intimate relationship with Mira Nair, the mother of the New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani
Claims that Epstein’s suicide in 2019 was faked, driven by AI-images depicting Epstein alive and living in Israel
Our researchers performed a broad initial search of Open Measures’ crawled platforms for posts mentioning “Epstein,” narrowed the results to only those created since members of Congress introduced the Epstein Files Transparency Act in July 2025, and identified the four platforms with the most posts during that period for analysis: TikTok, Bluesky, Truth Social, and 4chan. For each narrative, they created search queries meant to surface related posts and manually reviewed the results to identify relevant content:
(“zohran mamdani” OR “mamdani” OR “mira” OR “nair” OR “mira nair”) AND “epstein”(”Epstein” OR “Jeffrey Epstein”) AND (”alive” OR “living” OR “hiding” OR “fled” OR “escape*” OR “faked his death” OR “didn’t die” OR “isn’t dead” OR “never died” OR “survive*” OR “cover up” OR “coverup” OR “hoax”) AND (”Israel” OR “Tel Aviv”)Analysis
Open Measures found that false narratives about the Epstein files’ contents spread across social media with the aid of fake images produced with generative AI software. In some cases, these narratives reportedly inspired offline activity and saw engagement from hostile state actors.5 The proliferation of false narratives associated with AI-generated images occurred during a period of heightened interest in the Epstein files, in late Jan. 2025 through Feb. 2026.
From June 20, 2025 to Feb. 27, 2026, our researchers identified approximately 92,000 posts mentioning “Epstein” on the four analyzed platforms; earlier activity spikes aligned with other events unconnected to AI images and further detailed below.
False Claims About Epstein’s Relationship to Mira Nair and Zohran Mamdani
Mira Nair, an Indian-American filmmaker and the mother of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, appears in the Epstein files in a 2009 email from publicist Peggy Siegal to Epstein. The email stated that Nair had attended a party, which news outlets have surmised was planned to celebrate the release of Nair’s film Amelia,6 at the townhouse of Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell. Nair’s name appears several more times in relation to independent film events, while Mamdani’s appears once in the headline of a news article included in a “roundup” email containing additional unrelated stories.7
Though none of the materials released by the DOJ suggest Nair or Mamdani had personal relationships with Epstein or engaged in any wrongdoing, their mentions in the documents gave online actors the minimal context necessary to craft viral false narratives with AI images.
The most-circulated fake images our researchers identified depicted Nair and Mamdani in personal settings with Epstein and Maxwell, in addition to a host of global elites like former President Bill Clinton and billionaire tech CEOs Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. NewsGuard reported the images were first shared by a fringe account on X and subsequently amplified by influential figures like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.8
![A screenshot of a post on X from @RealAlexJones on Feb. 1, 2026, which includes “deepfake” AI images depicting a young Zohran Mamdani and his mother Mira Nair with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell alongside Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos (all of whom have been frequent targets of a range of right-wing conspiracy theories). The post reads [sic]: “Grok says this photo of the young future, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani with Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and others is real. I’m am about to break huge. news on this topic in the next few hours.” Below the post, a community note reads: “This image contains a synthid watermark indicating it was undeniably created with Google Nano banana image generation.”](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!D2ow!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F5702204d-78f3-45cb-89f8-f813e2ca57e0_1058x1146.png "A screenshot of a post on X from @RealAlexJones on Feb. 1, 2026, which includes “deepfake” AI images depicting a young Zohran Mamdani and his mother Mira Nair with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell alongside Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos (all of whom have been frequent targets of a range of right-wing conspiracy theories). The post reads [sic]: “Grok says this photo of the young future, New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani with Jeffrey Epstein, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and others is real. I’m am about to break huge. news on this topic in the next few hours.” Below the post, a community note reads: “This image contains a synthid watermark indicating it was undeniably created with Google Nano banana image generation.”")
Posts sharing fake images and misleading claims about Nair and Mamdani’s ties to Epstein drew millions of views across platforms, culminating in apparent protests against Mamdani outside Gracie Mansion,9 the official residence of New York City mayors, on Feb. 2.
With the “Timeline” feature, our researchers observed that the daily total of posts mentioning both Epstein and Mamdani spiked during the same time period on all four platforms analyzed. (Two prior spikes in November 2025, aligned with Mamdani’s election night victory speech and his White House meeting with Trump, respectively.)
Using the “Discover” feature to review their identified posts, our researchers found that the AI-generated images popularized on X and their associated false narratives had spread to the four platforms examined.
On TikTok, the fourth most-viewed video we identified contained one of these AI-generated images and presented it as authentic. The post amassed more than a million views and was re-shared more than 11,500 times. (The most-viewed posts we found were from news outlets reporting the images were inauthentic.)
On Truth Social, the three most re-shared posts discussing Epstein and Mamdani – one of which included an AI-generated image – originated from a single account styled after the “QAnon” conspiracy theory. In one post, the user asserted that there was “a very real possibility Zohran Mamdani is Jeffrey Epstein’s biological son.”
False Reports That Epstein is Alive and Living in Israel
Fake images posted to a Reddit community dedicated to sharing comical AI-generated content on Feb. 1, 2026, depicted a man who resembled Epstein crossing the street, flanked by apparent bodyguards and surrounded by signs seemingly written in Hebrew. The images in the post contained visible watermarks that indicated they had been created using Google AI software.
In the days that followed, users across social media platforms cropped the images to remove the watermark and used them to earnestly claim that Epstein was alive and hiding in Israel. Among these were several identical X posts shared on Feb. 5, that collectively garnered more than 10.5 million views.10 Though the images were quickly debunked by multiple outlets,11 12 the narrative still spread – even internationally, in Turkish and Arabic-language posts.13
Mirroring the false Nair/Mamdani narrative, our researchers saw earlier spikes in daily total posts referencing claims that Epstein was alive and living in Israel across all platforms they analyzed. These spikes were observed in:
July 2025, after the Trump Administration announced it no longer planned to release the Epstein files
September 2025, after an Epstein survivors’ rally took place outside the US Capitol
November 2025, after a House subcommittee released a trove of emails obtained from Epstein’s estate that showed family members expressing doubts he died by suicide
The most recent spike, in early February 2026, appeared to follow the spread of AI-generated images.
Conclusion
As this research shows, existing fact-checks and AI detection tools remain vastly outpaced by the viral spread of false narratives. This gap remains a significant vector for informational threats from both individual and state actors (acting intentionally and unintentionally). For its complexity, the Epstein story has proven particularly fertile for online misinformation accounts, who were able to spread many malicious claims without providing any concrete evidence.
With the use of AI-generated images, accounts spreading online misinformation about Epstein have already achieved international reach, compounding confusion on a much-discussed case. As this story develops, Open Measures encourages other researchers to use our platform to track and report on misinformation trends in order to halt their spread.
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Associated Press. (2026, Feb. 6). A timeline of the Jeffrey Epstein Investigation and the fight to make the government’s files public. Associated Press. PBS. Here.
Nour, A., Saeed, A., & Crew, J. (2026, Feb. 13). Head of Dubai-based ports giant DP World quits after Epstein Links revealed. BBC News. Here.
Smith, A., & Fievet, J.-N. (2026, Feb. 20). Former prince andrew arrested following Epstein files revelations. NBCNews.com. Here.
Fowler, S. (2026, Feb. 24). Justice Department withheld and removed some Epstein files related to trump. NPR. Here.
Russia’s matryoshka bots begin Epstein-themed disinfo campaign, focusing false claims against Ukraine and France. The Insider. (2026, Feb. 4). Here.
Epstein Library. Department of Justice | Epstein Library | United States Department of Justice. (2026, Feb. 23). Here.
Epstein Library. Department of Justice | Epstein Library | United States Department of Justice. (2026, Feb. 23). Here.
NewsGuard. (2026, Feb. 3). These shocking images were not in the epstein files. NewsGuard’s Reality Check. Here.
Sky News. (2026, Feb. 1). Supporters turn on Zohran Mamdani following his mother’s link to Epstein in latest files dump. SkyNews.com. Here.
Pham, Q. (2026, Feb. 13). New conspiracy theories hold that Jeffrey Epstein is alive and well. France 24. Here.
Tuquero, L. (2026, Feb. 6). Image of Jeffrey Epstein in Tel Aviv is ai-generated. Politifact. Here.