Multiple AI-generated photos falsely claiming to show New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a child and his mother, filmmaker Mira Nair, with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and his confidant Ghislaine Maxwell, along with other high-profile public figures, were shared widely on social media Monday (February 2, 2026).

The images originated on an X account labelled as parody after a huge tranche of new Epstein files was released by the Justice Department on Friday (January 30, 2026). They are clearly watermarked as AI and other elements they contain do not add up.

Here’s a closer look at the facts.

CLAIM: Images show Mr. Mamdani as a child and his mother with Epstein and other public figures linked to the disgraced financier.

THE FACTS: The images were created with artificial intelligence. They all contain a digital watermark identifying them as such and first appeared on a parody X account that says it creates “high quality AI videos and memes”.

In one of the images, Mr. Mamdani and Ms. Nair appear in the front of a group photo with Maxwell, Epstein, former President Bill Clinton, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. They seem to be posing at night on a crowded city street. Mr. Mamdani looks to be a preteen or young teenager.

Another supposedly shows the same group of people, minus Ms. Nair, in what appears to be a tropical setting. Epstein is pictured holding Mr. Clinton sitting in his arms, while Maxwell has her arm around Mr. Mamdani, who appears slightly younger.

Other AI-generated images circulating online depict Mr. Mamdani as a baby being held by Ms. Nair while she poses with Epstein, Mr. Clinton, Maxwell and Mr. Bezos. None of Epstein’s victims have publicly accused Mr. Clinton, Mr. Gates or Mr. Bezos of being involved in his crimes.

Google’s Gemini app detected SynthID, a digital watermarking tool for identifying content that has been generated or altered with AI, in all the images described above. This means they were created or edited, either entirely or in part, by Google’s AI models.

The X account that first posted the images describes itself as “an AI-powered meme engine” that uses “AI to create memes, songs, stories, and visuals that call things exactly how they are — fast, loud, and impossible to ignore”.

An inquiry sent to the account went unanswered. However, a post by the account seems to acknowledge that it created the images. “Damn you guys failed,” it reads. “I purposely made him a baby which would technically make this pic 34 years old. Yikes.”

The photos began circulating after an email emerged in which a publicist, Peggy Siegal, wrote to Epstein about seeing a variety of luminaries, including Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bezos and Ms. Nair, an award-winning Indian filmmaker, at 2009 afterparty for a film held at Maxwell’s townhouse.

While Mr. Mamdani appears as a baby or young child in all of the images, he was 18 in 2009, when Ms. Nair is said to have attended the party.

The images have led to related falsehoods that have spread online in their wake. For example, one claims that Epstein is Mr. Mamdani’s father. This is not true — Mr. Mamdani’s father is Mahmood Mamdani, an anthropology professor at Columbia University.

The NYC Mayor’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.