'F*** I am so alone': Hacked California crosswalk buttons play messages mocking Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg

In a bizarre incident, pedestrian crossings in several areas of Northern California have been hacked with fake greetings mocking the tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg. The voices of these tech moguls were heard along the streets of Silicon Valley this weekend, but neither of them were present nearby.

The auditory instructions of some crosswalks in Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Redwood City, California were hacked last week to feature voices that sounded like Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, videos shared online show.

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What do we know about hacked crosswalk signals?

Several crosswalk buttons in three California cities have been disabled after they were tampered with to play hoax audio clips claiming to be Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Videos posted online show crosswalk buttons in Redwood City, Menlo Park and Palo Alto when pressed impersonating voices of tech billionaires instead of usual pedestrian alerts.

Officials in Silicon Valley have launched an investigation and have disabled the audio feature on the crossings which usually plays instructions to "walk" or "wait".

One of the fake messages in Musk's voice welcomes people to Palo Alto, which is home to Tesla operations. When someone pressed the crosswalk button, it says, "Hi, this is Elon Musk. Welcome to Palo Alto, the home of Tesla engineering. You know, they say money can't buy happiness, any yeah okay. I guess that's true. God knows I've tried, but it can buy a Cybertruck and that's pretty sick, right?" F***, I am so alone."

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The surprise message was noticed over the weekend in Palo Alto, Redwood City and Menlo Park - which is home to Zuckerberg's sprawling Meta campus, reported BBC.

'Real ones call me The Zuck'

One from a fake Zuckerberg starts with him introducing himself before discussing inserting AI "into every facet of your conscious experience". One Musk impersonation offered to buy passing pedestrians a Tesla Cybertruck if they agreed to be his friend. Another from a false Zuckerberg said "real ones call me The Zuck".

The origin of the messages and how they came to be broadcast at pedestrian crossings is yet to be known. Officials from the affected areas—located just south of San Francisco—told the BBC that engineers are currently investigating how the systems were compromised.

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Pedro Quintana, spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), reported that approximately 10 pedestrian crossings in the Menlo Park and Palo Alto areas were affected.

According to Quintana, all of those crossings are now operating on a timer system, and the buttons that previously triggered the unauthorized messages have been disabled. The incident occurred throughout Silicon Valley, a region where both tech billionaires have a strong business presence.

As many as 12 crossings in the downtown area had been tampered with, the city of Palo Alto told the BBC. Meghan Horrigan-Taylor, a spokesperson for the city, said another city employee alerted officials to the issue on Saturday when they noticed the voice feature was not functioning properly. She added officials believe the tampering may have occurred on Friday.

"City staff have disabled the audible feature until further repairs can be made," she said. "Other traffic signals in the city were checked and the impact is isolated."

Local media also reported that several crossings in the Redwood City area were also hacked to sound like the two billionaires.