Bolsonaro ally blames ChatGPT for 'president elect' claim

A close ally of Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro said that the AI chatbot ChatGPT was responsible for language in a letter briefly posted on social media by the right-wing politician.

In the original letter, Mr Bolsonaro described himself as Brazil's rightful "president-elect". His ally insisted that the mistake did not alter Mr Bolsonaro's view that the election was illegitimate.

Mr Bolsonaro stunned Brazil's political establishment yesterday by making the claim and alleging without evidence that Sunday's runoff election, which he lost to leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva by more than 4 million votes, had been marred by fraud.

Roughly an hour after sharing the document, the senator deleted it from his accounts and published a revised version, replacing the term "president-elect" with "leader of Brazil."

As Brazilian media and political observers speculated about the abrupt change, one of Mr Bolsonaro's closest allies suggested that the explanation for the mistake was not political, but technological: the use of OpenAI's ChatGPT.

Right-wing influencer and podcast host Paulo Figueiredo, who serves as an unofficial spokesperson for the Bolsonaro family in the United States and first shared the letter with journalists, said the document had gone through several drafts and incorporated contributions from multiple people.

Mr Figueiredo said that Mr Bolsonaro's younger brother, former Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, sought ChatGPT's help to finalise the letter.

According to Mr Figueiredo, the chatbot inserted an outdated version of Brazil's coat of arms and used a previous draft of the letter.

"When generating the document, AI ended up including an earlier version of the text, in which Flavio presented himself as the true 'president-elect'," Mr Figueiredo wrote on X, adding the mistakes were noticed only after he distributed the letter to the press.

According to him, Mr Bolsonaro ultimately opted for the term "leader" for legal and moral reasons.

He added that those involved found the mistake "hilarious" and described tweaking the letter as "nothing major."

OpenAI and Mr Bolsonaro's press officers did not immediately reply to requests for comment.

"In the end, the essential is expressed precisely by Flavio: these elections were illegitimate, he does not recognise the result, and he will continue fighting to restore democracy in Brazil," Mr Figueiredo said.

The senator arrived in Miami yesterday after leaving Brazil, where he refused to comply with a Supreme Court order to turn in his passports as part of a probe into alleged money laundering, in which he denies wrongdoing.

Mr Bolsonaro's decision to declare himself the country's rightful "leader" has failed to garner support from key figures in his political camp, leaving him increasingly isolated.

Mr Lula's victory has been recognised by Brazil's federal electoral court, global leaders, international observers, and Mr Bolsonaro's own party.

Trump calls Brazil election a 'disgraceful situation'

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has described Brazil's presidential election as "disgraceful", stepping up his criticism and declining to say whether he recognised Mr Lula's victory.

"I think the election was a disgrace in Brazil," Mr Trump told reporters when asked if he accepted Mr Lula's victory, as the US leader headed on a midterm election campaign trip.

"I don't want to comment on it right now, but I thought the election was a very great embarrassment to the people of Brazil," Mr Trump added.

"I watched the election. I let it be. I was asked not to take sides by the president, the current president. I didn't take sides, but when I watched what went down in Brazil, it was a disgrace," he said.

Mr Trump pointed to the reaction of the Brazilian stock market, which dropped after Mr Lula's victory, adding, "I thought it was a very disgraceful situation for Brazil."

The US president's stance appeared to have hardened from as recently as yesterday, when he said Brazil's election was "very strange" but added that he "won't get involved" in Mr Bolsonaro's claim to the presidency.