20th Century Fox
Audio By Carbonatix
Do Elon Musk’s new Tesla robots and vans look a bit familiar? Well then maybe you’ve seen the 2004 film I, Robot.
Alex Proyas, the director of the Will Smith-starring sci-fi, took to X, formerly Twitter, to call out Elon Musk over the similarities between Tesla’s new Optimum robots and Robovan, and the designs seen in I, Robot.
I, Robot — based on Isaac Asimov’s 1950 short-story collection — tells the story of a futuristic tech company in 2035 Chicago that creates in-home robots that eventually become violent after the artificial intelligence controlling them becomes self-aware and plots a revolution.
“Hey Elon, Can I have my designs back please?” Proyas tweeted over the weekend, sharing side-by-side photos of the two design sets.
Hey Elon, Can I have my designs back please? #ElonMusk #Elon_Musk pic.twitter.com/WPgxHevr6E
— Alex Proyas (@alex_proyas) October 13, 2024
Filmmaker Matt Granger, who worked as an assistant on I, Robot added, “I too wish to offer my full-fingered ‘f— you’ to Elon and his utter lack of creativity.”
I, Robot, released in 2004, also stars Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell, Chi McBride, and Alan Tudyk alongside Will Smith.
“So what can it do? It’ll be able to do anything you want,” Musk said of the robots at a Tesla event on Thursday, October 10.
“So it can be a teacher or babysit your kids. It can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks, whatever you can think of, it will do,” he continued. “I think this will be the biggest product ever of any kind.”
Check out the official trailer for I, Robot below.