Pregnancy Robots: Elon Musk’s Bold New Plan

Question

Elon Musk is currently working on a new version of robots that can carry your baby for 9 months while you go about your work. You and your husband just need to provide your sperm and eggs. The robot will fertilize them and allow the baby to grow inside for 9 months.

Comments

This probably isn't the best source to see if this is true or not. Just based off the language used in the article, one can tell that it is an opinion piece more talking about the possibility of such a robot rather than the actual plans to build one.

Answer 1

It appears the claim the Elon Musk is developing a child-bearing robot is false, according to this fact-check from USA Today. This article is attributed to Gabrielle Settles, who, according to her LinkedIn profile, has contributed to USA Today for nearly 1.5 years, and before that, to PolitiFact for over 2 years. In the USA Today article, published October 30, Ms. Settles explains that: "During Tesla’s 'We, Robot' event on Oct. 10, Musk introduced a robovan and a robotaxi – but a pregnant robot wasn’t on the list." She goes on to point out that the YouTube transcript of the event shows Musk did not make any announcement about a pregnancy robot during his presentation. According to my Google search, there are seemingly no credible news reports about such an announcement, either. For these reasons, I believe it is safe to conclude that the claim is false.

Comments

This is a good and well-evidenced comment. You correctly reference credible sources, including USA Today and a verbatim report of Musk's press conference, for support. Citing Gabrielle Settles' background adds credibility to your judgment. You also independently fact-check the statement using a Google search, which is good practice. Otherwise, your argument is rational, fact-based, and clearly explains why the claim about a "child-bearing robot" is not true.

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This is a great example of a fact check. When information is so clearly false like this post, it is easy to just say "you can't possibly believe this", but you did a great job in using credible resources to deny it. I think if people were to give evidence like this to those confused about things elon does and says, we would have a lot less stupid ideas floating around.

Answer 2

According to EuroWeekly News, Elon Musk announced he was in the process of making a robotic companion that could perform chores for you. This included mowing the lawn, watering the garden, babysitting the kids, and even being pregnant for you.

According to PolitiFact, however, this pregnancy robot claim stemmed from a running joke online that went too far. Musk did claim that “whatever you can think of, it will do” (PolitiFact). This statement made posters on social media start a meme trend, talking about what the robot could do for them, such as “make me a sandwich at 2am”, “fire up another round of pizza bites”, but some posters took it a step further by saying it could bear a couple's child. Meta, however, flagged those who posted about it as false news and removed them.

The BBC had similar facts that helped refute this claim, stating that the humanoid robots would be sold “in low production for Tesla”. They will not be offered to a large portion of the population, and those who would gain one would most likely be big commercial companies. It is also noted that the robots would be used for "repetitive or boring tasks”, making it seem like a low-functioning machine, compared to one that would have to be highly advanced to carry out a human being.

An article written by Snopes further explained how the rumor of the pregnancy robot came to fruition, explaining its origins, coming from TikTok. Snopes also confirms that there have been no credible news sources that have reported this claim. Furthermore, Scopes found the original poster of this meme and discovered they work with generative AI art, one of their pieces included the images used in their video to promote their joke. 

Comments

This answer is very well written and I feel like your sources are credible. One thing to dig even deeper would be to possibly figure out where these sources of BBC, PolitiFact, and others got their information and what exact "facts" they had to refute the claim. The answer does a good job explaining how the claim may have stemmed from a joke or opinion rather than fact.

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You've cited multiple sources, but didn't provide any URLs for the sources. Please do so for future fact-checks. Thanks!

Answer 3

The claim that Elon Musk is looking into creating robots that can hold and create your baby for 9 months is completely false and provides no liable evidence for it to be true. The source https://euroweeklynews.com/2024/10/25/pregnancy-robots-elon-musks-bold-new-plan contains lots of advertisements that looked to be scams or irrelevant to the content being explained. There are no citations in the article, and, upon doing secondary research, I noticed there were no other trusted articles about this topic when searching on Safari and on Elon Musk's Twitter and Instagram 

https://x.com/elonmusk: no content on pregnancy robots 

https://www.tesla.com/blog: no content on pregnancy robots 

https://www.bbc.com/: no content on pregnancy robots, as this article usually covers most of Elon Musks stories

Answer 4

In my research, I have found that this is just a rumour circulating many websites that are not reputable. While Elon Musk has a reputation of being interested in fertility and pushing the boundaries of our technology, there is no credible evidence that this is a project he is actively working on. 

For a primary source, I went to the Musk-run Tesla website and found all of his publically available projects across all companies. He is working on technology that would link a human brain to computers, but there has been no mention otherwise of technology that would replace a biological function. 

Source: https://www.tesla.com/elon-musk

For my secondary source, PolitiFact, a very reputable fact-checking website, published the article "Claims Elon Musk is developing a surrogate robot are unfounded," published October 29, 2024. In this article, the author, Ciara O'Rourke, investigated all claims that Musk was developing a pregnancy robot, but found that they were the result of a popular meme after a technological conference Musk talked at implied that robots he was developing could do "anything" for you. The source for this claim originated from internet users on Facebook and was flagged by Meta as misinformation. 

My other secondary source is a reputable fact-checking website named Snopes, which also rated this claim false for the same reasons as Politifact. Published on October 31, 2024, "Musk Developing Robots to Carry Human Babies?" by Joey Esposito also delves into the claims and proves that they are all based off of internet memes and speculation. 

As well, none of my secondary sources could find any credible source to prove that this was a project that Musk had announced he'd be working on.

Source 1: https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/feb/12/principles-truth-o-meter-politifacts-methodology-i/

Source 2: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/musk-robots-human-babies/

Politifact discloses every part of their process, including their acceptance of financial donations with very specific guidelines. As well, Politifact states on their website that they do not "give donors, advertisers or grantmakers any influence over content or ratings. Our contracts and grant agreements have clauses asserting our editorial independence." 

Source: https://www.politifact.com/article/2018/feb/12/principles-truth-o-meter-politifacts-methodology-i/#Our%20funding

As well, Snopes posts their funding/transparency about their donors and methodology on their website. There is a clear, well-researched process into publishing an article.

Source: https://www.snopes.com/disclosures/

Tesla's website has the potential to be incorrect if Musk is secretly working on this project, but as far as this claim goes, there is no credible evidence to suggest that Musk is working on this project publically.

 

Answer 5

The claim that Musk is working on creating a robot to fertilize sperm and eggs and carry a baby for nine months is false. I found two fact-checking organizations—Snopes and PolitiFact—which demonstrate that there is no evidence to support this. On October 10, 2024, Musk held a “We, Robot” event where he showcased robots that could perform household chores (USA Today, PolitiFact). The false news seems to have stemmed from a few quotes from Musk that were taken out of context: “It’ll do anything you want. Whatever you think of, it will do” (PolitiFact). On October 22, a Facebook post claiming Musk was creating a robot to carry a baby during pregnancy was shared 3,000 times in a week (USA Today). This post is one of many. (It seems the EuroWeekly News article is riddled with the same baseless social media speculation.)