President Donald Trump posted a bizarre AI-generated video to social media Monday evening depicting an imagined future version of Gaza with bearded belly dancers on the beach, a giant golden statue of Trump, money raining from the sky, Elon Musk eating pita and a “Trump Gaza” hotel.
The video, posted on Trump’s Truth Social and Instagram accounts, appears to have been first spread by a network of pro-Israel social media accounts. It draws on images generated by artificial intelligence that were created after Trump said in early February that the U.S. would “take over the Gaza Strip.”
The posts quickly drew condemnation from many users on Truth Social and Instagram, even from people who identified themselves as Republicans. It’s the latest instance of Trump embracing generative AI and images created by the technology. He has frequently posted images on Truth Social that appear AI-made.
The Gaza video appears to be referencing Trump’s statements during a press conference on Feb. 4 with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump suggested then that the U.S. could relocate Palestinians to other countries and “level the site” to create a “Riviera of the Middle East.”
In a statement provided to NBC News, White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said: “As President Trump has said, Gaza in its current state is unhabitable for any human being. President Trump is a visionary, and his plan to have the United States involved in Gaza’s rebuilding will allow for Palestinians to resettle in new, beautiful communities while improving conditions in the region for generations to come.”
The earliest post found by NBC News of the AI-generated video online was posted on Feb. 7 by pro-Israel X account Nazi Hunters (@huntersofnazis).
“Looks like the Gaz-A-Lago resort already dropped its first official tourism promo 😂,” the account wrote in the post.
The account, which posts a mix of pro-Israeli and anti-Palestinian memes, photos and news, did not respond to requests for comment, but seemed to suggest that they created the video in posts made Tuesday. “It was a joke 😂,” they wrote, responding to a user who posted about Trump’s use of the video. “So, it seems like Trump also saw it… 😭,” they wrote in another post.
It’s not clear exactly how the video was created and produced or how it came to Trump’s attention, but it used at least one AI-generated image that had gone viral just a day after Trump’s statements about Gaza.
On Feb. 5, an image that appears to have been created with Grok AI, X’s AI service, began to circulate. It included a Grok AI watermark, and showed Trump sitting next to Netanyahu on the beach with colorful drinks in front of a sign that read “Trump Riviera.”
One of the first X accounts that posted the image is an account called Glasgow Friends of Israel (@GlasgowFOI), which posts similar content to the Nazi Hunters account.
“A view of #Gaza’s future? Warmer than #TrumpTurnberry. Add some golf courses, casinos, hotels, strip clubs and a wrestling arena, and it could be the ultimate #Trump resort. #AmYisraelChai #StandWithIsrael,” the account wrote in the post. Glasgow Friends of Israel did not respond to a request for comment.
The image quickly spread, getting reposted by a variety of accounts across the political spectrum. Filmmaker Morgan J. Freeman, who has posted content that’s critical of Trump, shared the image on X. His post was viewed over 700,000 times.
The image was one of the first of a series of memes posted imagining what a Trump Riviera or Trump Gaza would look like, with some featuring golf courses and buildings.
Creators on both sides of the Israeli-Gaza conflict have used generative AI to create memes and political content since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas’ attack on Israel. Accounts devoted to spreading generative AI content centered on the war have gained thousands of followers since the war began.
The video posted by Trump, though, has drawn a notably negative reaction, even from users who claim to be Republicans.
On Truth Social, where the user base is predominantly composed of conservatives, many of the comments the platform labeled as “trending” condemned the post. On Instagram, influencers who had supported Trump through the campaign questioned why he was posting it.
In Gaza, people who spoke to NBC News condemned the video.
“We as Palestinians won’t let Trump and his people, his group, do what he wants to do as he did in this video. We can’t accept that,” said Hussam Al Sharif, a 19-year-old student at the University of Palestine. “This is not our traditions. This is not our culture. We will not let the foreign people come here in Gaza and destroy our country and to rebuild it as they want.”
