Did Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly announce plans to introduce a car with a water-powered engine in November 2024? No, that's not true: There is no record that Musk or Tesla formally introduced this concept, such as trustworthy media reports. An online AI detector tool found that images published in a post about the supposed announcement were almost certainly fakes made by ai art generators. The account that shared the post has also published dozens of similar reports of far-fetched tech supposedly created by Musk.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on November 10, 2024. Above two images of Elon Musk standing next to what appeared to be car engines, the caption said:
Elon Musk: 'Tesla's New WATER ENGINE Will Destroy Entire EV Industry!'
Elon has done it again. This time, he's introducing something that could change the world forever--a water-powered engine. Tesla's latest breakthrough is a car that runs on water, producing nothing but clean water vapor and leaving zero harmful emissions. After leading the electric vehicle revolution, Elon is now flipping the script and pushing a technology that seemed impossible not too long ago.
This is how the post appeared at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken Thu Nov 14 16:50:00 2024 UTC)
The post did not provide any information to support this claim, such as when or where Musk purportedly announced these plans, nor did it link to any credible documentation.
Lead Stories ran the two images in the post through an artificial intelligence (AI) detection tool on TrueMedia.org, a self-described deepfake detector website. True Media determined (archived here) that the photos display "substantial evidence of manipulation" and were likely generated using AI:
(Source: truemedia.org screenshot taken on Fri Nov 15 1:35:15 2024 UTC)
The account "The Jet Fighter" (archived here) that created this post has also shared dozens of other posts (archived here) that make similar claims of innovation, feature Musk and include AI-generated images, such as a "UFO Fighter Jet That Defies Physics" (archived here), a "Supersonic Space Jet" (archived here) and a "Hypercar That Is Powered by a JET ENGINE!" (archived here).
Below is a screenshot of some of the posts shared by the account as of November 15, 2024:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken Thu Nov 14 19:58:00 2024 UTC)
A Google News search (archived here) using keywords from this post did not produce any reports about Musk's supposed announcement.
A search (archived here) of the X platform did not produce any results that proved Musk said, "Tesla's New WATER ENGINE Will Destroy Entire EV Industry!"
A search (archived here) of Tesla's corporate website did not confirm Musk made this announcement.
Lead Stories did a Google reverse image search (archived here) and could not locate the original publication of the images in this post. However, these images have been shared on several social media platforms.
Lead Stories contacted Tesla for a statement verifying the validity of this claim. If a response is received, this fact check will be updated.
When this was written, PolitiFact had reviewed the same claim.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks mentioning Tesla can be read here.
