Washington, DC — It started like any other weekend in the land of Teslas and tap-to-pay lattes.

Pedestrians in Palo Alto, California, and nearby tech havens queued at crosswalks, pressed buttons and braced themselves for the usual robotic "WAIT."

Instead, they got existential therapy from a voice uncannily similar to Elon Musk.

"Hi, this is Elon Musk. Welcome to Palo Alto, the home of Tesla engineering," one message began.

"You know, they say money can't buy happiness, and … I guess that's true. God knows I've tried. But it can buy a Cybertruck, and that’s pretty sick, right? Right? (Expletive), I'm so alone."

Zuckerberg's version was no less biting. "There's absolutely nothing you can do to stop it," the fake voice said, referring to the rise of AI. "Anyway, see ya."

Locals stopped in their tracks, not because of oncoming traffic, but because the world's richest man — or someone sounding suspiciously like him — had just confessed his loneliness to a lamppost.

Another crossing chimed in with an AI-generated Mark Zuckerberg drawl: "Hi, this is Mark Zuckerberg, but real ones call me The Zuck. It's normal to feel uncomfortable or even violated as we forcefully insert AI into every ... facet of your conscious experience."

Dystopia and comedy

Palo Alto city officials, who clearly did not sign up for this kind of performance art, were quick to act.

Spokeswoman Meghan Horrigan-Taylor confirmed that multiple intersections downtown had been compromised.

"City staff have disabled the audible feature until further repairs can be made," she said. "Other traffic signals in the city were checked, and the impact is isolated."

 So, how did this surreal remix of dystopia and comedy even happen? That’s still unclear.

What’s known is that at least three cities, Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Redwood City, saw their pedestrian systems turned into a parody platform for Silicon Valley's two very high-profile moguls. 

A cradle of innovation, the San Francisco Bay Area houses the headquarters of tech giants like HP and serves as the birthplace of industry-shaping titans such as Apple, Google, Facebook, Logitech, Tesla, Ford Motor Company and Lockheed Martin, among others.

It's an area where garages turn into launchpads and ideas become empires.

The crosswalk crisis

Meanwhile, the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has also admitted that several crosswalks were affected.

"All of those are now working on a timer system," said spokesperson Pedro Quintana. "The buttons which launched the fake messages have been deactivated."

In other words, the walk buttons are on mute. For now.

No one has taken responsibility for the hack. But whoever's behind it seems to know their audience. The messages were eerily well-scripted.

One Musk impersonation offered to buy pedestrians a Cybertruck if they agreed to be his friend.

Zuckerberg's AI clone promised total domination of human consciousness, with the air of someone who's perhaps tested it on his coworkers.

Videos of the prank quickly went viral.

TikTok, Instagram and X were flooded with footage of pedestrians halting mid-step, phones up, grins widening, as Silicon Valley's very own robotic voices gave them a surreal slice of satire.

Neither Musk nor Zuckerberg has responded publicly to the crosswalk crisis.

Poetic justice or good trolling

Menlo Park, home to Meta's vast campus, says its city-controlled crossings weren't affected — but Caltrans-run ones were, especially along El Camino Real. In Redwood City, officials confirmed many crossings were targeted.

The irony, of course, is that this prank happened in the very belly of the beast — the birthplace of the same AI tools now being used to roast its creators.

The billionaire tech overlords who turned automation into a business model were, for one weekend, spoofed by the very tools they helped unleash on the world.

In the end, it may have taken an anonymous hacker and a walk signal to sum up the strange, self-aware theatre of Silicon Valley.

Many commentators on social media likened Silicon Valley's crosswalk hack to the tech moguls' personas, reflecting a cultural pushback against their outsized influence and perceived disconnect.

As one TikTok user put it: "Honestly, it's the most honest thing I've heard from them in years."