Tech giant Elon Musk’s father has shared a rare image of his son when he was a child, as an AI-generated photo of the future Tesla mogul made him look like a “dwarf adult human”.
Earlier this month, the Twitter parody account “Not Jerome Powell” posted a photo of a brown-eyed boy wearing a white, button-down shirt under suspenders with Musk’s recognizable stern face.
“BREAKING: Elon Musk was reportedly working on some anti-aging formula, but it got out of hand,” read the tweet, which has been viewed more than 4.5 million times as of Thursday.
Retired electromechanical engineer Errol Musk, 77, described his famous son’s AI photo as “ridiculous”.
“It’s a picture of a dwarf adult,” the elderly Musk told The US Sun.
The father shared a photo of the South African-born Elon sporting blonde hair and a big smile in boy-appropriate shorts and a striped short-sleeved shirt.
Errol Musk told the news site, “[there] is no resemblance to Elon at that age, but rather a version of him as an adult turned into a dwarf.”
Errol Musk also looked into his son’s potential cage fight with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, warning that Elon was walking into a “no-win situation”.
Errol Musk told the US Sun, “The thing is, if this crazy fight goes forward, if Elon beats this guy, Elon will be called a rookie because he’s so heavy and tall.”
“whereas if he lost, the humiliation would be complete.” Errol Musk said: “Elon loses if he wins and loses if he loses.”
Errol Musk was unhappy with this viral AI-generated image that bears a striking resemblance to a young Elon. Jerome Powell no, /twitter
“Wins, he’s a badass. Loses, he’s a loser.”
Elon and Errol Musk’s relationship has been quite controversial. In September, Elon said that he had supported his father financially since the 1990s.
In a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone, Musk described his father as “a genius at engineering” but “such a terrible human being”.
Errol Musk, who divorced Elon’s mother Maye in 1979, recently hit the headlines when he allegedly fathered two children with his stepdaughter.
Elon Musk has been critical of AI, even as he pursues the technology through his own businesses — including a general AI project that will compete directly with OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Elon Musk has had a contentious relationship with his father, who has warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence.
Last month, Musk warned that there was “a non-zero possibility” that rogue advanced artificial intelligences could destroy humanity.
“The chances of it going Terminator are not zero. It’s not zero percent,” Musk said.
“It is a small probability of the destruction of humanity, but it is not zero. We want the probability to be as close to zero as possible.
Musk also raised the possibility that an advanced AI system could decide to keep humanity “under tight control”.
In March, Musk joined more than 1,000 experts advocating for a six-month moratorium on advanced AI products until proper safeguards and guardrails can be put in place.