AI-Generated Images Falsely Link NYC Mayor to Epstein Circle, Sparking Misinformation Fears
A wave of digitally fabricated photographs falsely depicting New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a child alongside disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell circulated widely on social media platforms Monday, raising fresh concerns about the weaponization of artificial intelligence in political smear campaigns.
The images, which also feature former President Bill Clinton, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, originated from an X account labeled as a parody channel. Their emergence followed Friday's release of a new batch of Epstein-related documents by the U.S. Justice Department, creating a ripe environment for misinformation.
Digital forensics experts and platform tools quickly identified the images as AI-generated. All contain visible digital watermarks, and inconsistencies in lighting, anatomy, and contextual details further betray their artificial origins. Google's SynthID watermark detection tool confirmed the content was created or altered using AI models.
In one particularly elaborate fabrication, a young Mamdani and his mother, acclaimed filmmaker Mira Nair, are shown at the forefront of a group posing on a city street at night with Epstein, Maxwell, Clinton, Bezos, and Gates. Another image sets a similar improbable gathering in a tropical locale.
The X account responsible for the images describes itself as an "AI-powered meme engine." In a since-deleted post, the account appeared to boast about the deception, writing, "I purposely made him a baby which would technically make this pic 34 years old. Yikes."
The fabrications appear to exploit a tangential historical connection: a 2009 email revealed in the recent document dump, in which a publicist mentioned seeing Nair among guests at a film afterparty at Maxwell's townhouse. Notably, Mamdani was 18 years old at that time, not a child or infant as depicted in the AI images.
"This is a dangerous new frontier," said David Chen, a cybersecurity analyst at the Digital Integrity Project. "These tools are being used not just for parody, but to seed complex false narratives that target public figures by exploiting real news events."
Anya Sharma, a political communications professor, offered a more measured view: "While alarming, this also demonstrates that current detection methods can work. The watermarks were clear, and the timeline was physically impossible. Media literacy and source verification remain our best defenses."
Others reacted with sharper criticism. Marcus Johnson, a community organizer, stated angrily: "It's outright digital libel. This isn't humor—it's a coordinated attempt to undermine a public official by linking him to monstrous crimes. The platforms hosting this need to be held accountable, not just label it 'parody.'"
The incident has already spawned secondary falsehoods, including baseless claims that Epstein is Mamdani's father. Mayor Mamdani's father is Mahmood Mamdani, a professor at Columbia University.
The New York City Mayor's Office declined to comment on the circulating images. The episode underscores the growing difficulty for social media companies and the public in distinguishing between satire, malicious fabrication, and legitimate documentation in the AI age.