Crosswalk signals in several US cities were hacked this week to play deepfake audio impersonating tech leaders like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Jeff Bezos.

In Seattle, pedestrians were met by an AI-generated version of Bezos’s voice. After pressing the crosswalk button, Bezons’ AI voice greeted pedestrians with:

“Hello, this is Jeff Bezos. This crosswalk is sponsored by Amazon Prime with an important message. Please, please don’t tax the rich. Otherwise, all the other billionaires will move to Florida too,” the voice said.

The recording also referred to 26-year-old Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

“Wouldn’t it be terrible if all the rich people left Seattle or got Luigi-ed and then the normal people could afford to live here again?” the message continued.

A spokesperson for Amazon said: “We do not endorse or sponsor these crosswalks.”

Similar hacks were spotted in Silicon Valley, where crosswalk buttons played AI-generated voices impersonating Meta’s Zuckerberg, Tesla’s Musk, and Donald Trump.

“Hi, this is Mark Zuckerberg, but real ones call me the Zuck. You know, it’s normal to feel uncomfortable or even violated as we forcibly insert AI into every facet of your conscious experience. And I just want to assure you — you don’t need to worry because there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Anyway, see ya,” said Zuckerberg’s voice in a message at a crosswalk near Melo Park.

One of the recordings even had Trump telling Musk to “come back to bed.”

The hacks appear to trace back to a shared source: Polara, a major US manufacturer of pedestrian signals. Municipal governments and contractors across the country often use these systems because they’re built to be simple and reliable, with software that connects through Bluetooth.

This setup allows the signals to be remotely controlled. Polara also offered a Field Service app to help users configure the systems without needing extra proprietary tools. While this was a convenient way for cities to manage the devices, it also meant that anyone, even pranksters, could tamper with the crosswalks.

Once the app is installed and linked to a nearby crosswalk system via Bluetooth, users can customize the messages triggered by button presses, adjust the signal timing, and even install language packs. In this case, it appears that AI-generated voices were used to replace the standard messages.

After the recent hacks, the app was pulled from both the Google Play and Apple App Store.