Does authentic video show a Tesla cybertruck is not destroyed when a boulder described as a ton of rock is dropped on it? No, that's not true: The video originates from a social media account that specializes in generative AI fake videos. The same account features videos of a Yeti frozen in a block of ice, a giant spiked sea turtle and a crocodile the size of a semi-truck's trailer. The account clearly labels its work as AI and the action shown violates the laws of physics.
Multiple YouTube (archived here) and X accounts reposted the video without noting its AI origins, including this erased X post and in this May 18, 2025 post on X (archived here) by @MohiniWealth under the caption "We dropped 1000 kg of hate." It opened:
It held up. #tesla
This is what the post looked like on X at the time this fact check was written:
The video was originally posted April 30, 2025 by @LexRaym, an Instagram account whose bio clearly spells out it showcases the work of "Alex Ray, 🤖Ai Digital Creator".
Other videos posted to the same page and displayed in the gallery include the Yeti and Crocodile mentioned above and shown here:
(Source: Instagram.com screenshot by Lead Stories.)
In addition to the labelling by the video producer, there are obvious artifacts of generative AI:
1. Similar to AI's tendency to add fingers to human hands, it has subtracted the bucket or gripping tool on the business end of the hydraulic arm of the crawler. That would make it impossible to lift and hold a boulder over a truck. There is only what appears to be a bracket that might hold a bucket or gripper.
2. The action defies Newton's Third Law of Motion: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. At the moment the boulder is released, the crawler does not rock or move in any way that indicates the sudden release of a huge weight at the end of a long lever.
3. The boulder itself appears immune to the law of conservation of matter. Much of the mass of it disappears and is not shown either in chunks or piles of pulverized rubble of the same volume after the impact with the truck.
Readers seeking a gallery of Lead Stories fact checks of AI video fakes will find them here.
