Emily Hart had millions of MAGA fans drooling over her content. Turns out, she’s an AI character made by an Indian scammer.

A 22-year-old medical student from northern India, who goes by the name Sam, recently revealed how he made thousands of dollars by creating a fake, AI-powered MAGA supporter named Emily Hart. Sam was struggling to fund his medical licensing exams and needed a steady income. After trying different online side hustles, he turned to AI tools to build a persona that would appeal to a specific group of people.

Sam told WIRED that he noticed that generic AI models were not gaining much attention, so he asked Google Gemini for advice on how to stand out. According to a transcript he provided, the chatbot suggested targeting the conservative niche, calling it a “cheat code.” 

The reasoning was that conservative audiences, especially older men in the United States, tend to have more disposable income and stay loyal to content that matches their values. A Gemini representative said the tool is designed to be neutral and does not favor any political ideology, but the advice Sam received led directly to the creation of Emily Hart.

AI-generated political personas are becoming a highly profitable tool for anonymous scammers

The Emily Hart Instagram account was launched in January and presented her as a registered nurse who looked like Jennifer Lawrence. Sam filled her feed with classic American imagery, showing her ice fishing, drinking Coors Light, and shooting at a rifle range. 

He paired these images with emoji-heavy captions pushing pro-Christian, anti-abortion, and anti-immigration messages. The account gained over 10,000 followers within a single month, and many of her Reels racked up millions of views.

Sam made a few thousand dollars a month by directing followers to a platform called Fanvue, an OnlyFans competitor, where he sold softcore AI-generated content. He also sold MAGA-themed merchandise, including items with slogans like “PTSD: Pretty Tired of Stupid Democrats.” 

For a student living in India, where professional wages are much lower, the income was life-changing. He spent only 30 to 50 minutes a day running the account. This kind of deception is part of a much larger pattern. Valerie Wirtschafter, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, says that while fake profiles are nothing new, AI has made them far more convincing. 

These fake accounts usually follow a specific formula, presenting as white, blonde women working in fields like emergency response. By mixing right-wing politics with a “hot girl” image, these accounts take advantage of users who lack strong digital literacy skills. This also speaks to how deeply divided the MAGA base has become, making them an easier target for this kind of manipulation.

The financial exploitation of this audience goes beyond AI influencers. Earlier reports showed how scammers used so-called “Trump Bucks,” marketed as investment opportunities, to steal money from supporters. 

According to The Daily Beast, people like John Amann lost thousands of dollars on these items, only to find out they were worthless commemorative products. Companies like Patriots Dynasty, Patriots Future, and USA Patriots were connected to these schemes, which spread through platforms like Telegram.

Sam described his content as “rage bait,” and noted that even when liberals visited the page to leave negative comments, the engagement helped push his content to more people. Meta, which owns Instagram, banned the Emily Hart account in February for fraudulent activity, though her Facebook page stayed up for a while longer. Despite the ban, Sam said he had no regrets, and felt he was simply giving people content they wanted.

Other similar accounts have appeared online, such as the now-removed @mayflowermommy13, which showed a brunette woman delivering political messages from her kitchen. 

Another example, Jessica Foster, used her viral fame to promote feet pics before her account was also taken down. The loyalty of the MAGA audience has even extended to political flashpoints, with prominent MAGA figures publicly clashing over Trump’s foreign policy decisions, showing just how emotionally invested this base can be. 

These creators tend to avoid platforms like OnlyFans, which have stricter identity checks and require AI disclosure, and instead prefer more permissive sites like Fanvue. Sam has since moved on to focus on his medical studies, but the blueprint he built still exists, with new AI characters constantly replacing the ones that get banned.