A spokesperson for Palo Alto informed Palo Alto Online that employees discovered 12 intersections downtown were impacted. As a precaution, they’ve turned off the voice features of the crosswalks until they can fix them, although the signals otherwise function normally. The hacking incident appears to have occurred on Friday, according to the spokesperson.

A similar situation is unfolding in Redwood City, where a deputy city manager told The San Francisco Chronicle that they are looking into the problem and working on a solution. Additionally, it’s reported that the crosswalk buttons in Menlo Park are experiencing the same issue.

The voice features of these buttons are used to guide people with difficulty seeing, letting them know when to “wait” and when the walk sign on the other end of the street has turned on. It’s hard to tell how much, if at all, the simulated voices interfere with that, but they seem to be playing in addition to, rather than instead of the built-in safety notices, at least in some videos of the phenomenon.

Here are some videos with the simulated voice of Musk, along with my transcriptions below each:

Hi, this is Elon Musk, and I’d like to personally welcome you to Palo Alto. You know, people keep saying, ‘cancer is bad,’ but have you ever tried being a cancer? It’s fucking awesome.

Hi, this is Elon Musk. Welcome to Palo Alto, the home of Tesla engineering. You know, they say money can’t buy happiness, and yeah, okay, I guess that’s true. God knows I’ve tried. But it can buy a Cybertruck, and that’s pretty sick, right? Right? Fuck, I’m so alone.

Hi, I’m Elon. Can we be friends? Will you be my friend? I’ll give you a Cybertruck, I promise. Okay, look, you don’t know the level of depravity I would stoop to just for a crumb of approval.

One had a guest spot from a soundalike of President Donald Trump, clearly making light of Musk’s close association with Trump:

Not Musk: You know, it’s funny, I used to think he was just this dumb sack of shit. But once you get to know him, he’s actually pretty sweet and tender and loving.

Not Trump: Sweetie, come back to bed.

One video published by Palo Alto Online featured this quote, spoken by a faked Zuckerberg’s voice:

Hey, it’s Zuck here. I just want to tell you how very proud I am of everything we’ve been building together. From undermining democracy to cooking our grandparents’ brains with AI slop, to — to making the world less safe for trans people. Nobody does it better than us, and, uh, and I think that’s pretty neat. Zuck out!

Otherwise, the other simulated Zuckerberg voice messages I found in videos online all had the same content:

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 forcefully insert AI into every, every facet of your conscious experience. And I just want to assure you, you don’t need to worry, because there’s absolutely nothing you can do to stop it. Anyway, see ya.