On April 19, during Tesla’s first-quarter earnings call, CEO Elon Musk revealed new images of the Tesla Cybertruck, a durable new model that is currently in production at a factory near Austin, Texas.
That same day, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott retweeted a video from Twitter account @teslacarsonly.
The video appears to show the Cybertruck’s passenger side windows being shot multiple times by a semi-automatic weapon, with no damage to the vehicle.
“TESLA CYBERTRUCK IS BULLETPROOF AND HARDEST VEHICLE ON EARTH,” the tweet from @teslacarsonly exclaimed. People in the comments on Abbott’s retweet questioned if it was real.
THE QUESTION
Is the video of a Tesla Cybertruck being sprayed by bullets real?
THE SOURCES
- Slav Popovski, a Sydney, Australia-based graphic designer
- InVid and RevEye, footage forensics tools
- TinEye, a reverse image search tool
THE ANSWER
No, the video of a Tesla Cybertruck being sprayed by bullets is not real.
WHAT WE FOUND
The video of the Tesla Cybertruck being sprayed with bullets is actually an animation that was created in 2019 by Slav Popovski, a Sydney, Australia-based graphic artist.
VERIFY was able to find the original video using InVid, a video forensics tool, and RevEye, a reverse image search tool.
“Would you trust the Cybertrucks [sic] windows enough to sit inside it while this happens? Here is a loop style animation I created. Have a great day or night my friends,” Popovski wrote in the caption of the original Instagram video.
The license plate on the fake Cybertruck also says PSLAVI, which is Popovski’s trademark and featured in nearly every video posted on Popovski’s YouTube and Instagram accounts.
When VERIFY conducted the reverse image search of frames seen in the fake video, TinEye returned results that further confirmed the video is fake. The background used in the fake video has been used in other graphic designs featuring other vehicles.
In this case, the same background in the fake video was also used in 2015 to show a 3-D model of a Toyota Yaris. The same beams, wooden walls and the banner showing the number “10” can be seen in the original photo and in the fake video.
According to multiple reports, the Cybertruck does have the potential to be durable enough to be bulletproof against some kinds of ammunition because the Cybertruck’s frame is made from the same thick stainless steel used for the Space X Starship spacecraft.
Tesla's website also says the Cybertruck will have armored glass.
VERIFY reached out to Tesla for comment but did not hear back at the time of publication.
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