Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI has discussed where it would get some Tesla revenue in exchange for providing the carmaker access to its technology and resources, the latest example of the growing interconnectedness of Musk’s companies, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Under a proposed arrangement as described to investors, Tesla would license xAI’s artificial-intelligence models to help power its driver-assisted software, called Full Self Driving, and share some of the revenue with the startup, according to people familiar with the matter. xAI would assist in developing other features for Tesla, including a Siri-like voice assistant inside its electric cars and software to power its humanoid robot Optimus, the people said.
The terms of any revenue-sharing agreement between xAI and Tesla would depend in part upon how extensively Tesla relied on xAI’s technology as opposed to its own, the people said. xAI executives have discussed an even revenue split from Tesla’s FSD, one of the people said.
After this article was published, Musk replied on X to a user’s summary of it by saying: “Haven’t read the article, but the above is not accurate,” and that “there is no need to license anything from xAI.” Shortly after, he posted “WSJ is talking nonsense.”
Reuters reported Elon Musk denied a report that his artificial intelligence startup xAI has held talks for a share in future Tesla revenue in return for giving Musk’s electric vehicle maker access to xAI’s technology and resources.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that Tesla would license xAI’s artificial-intelligence models to help power its driver-assistance software, full self driving technology and share some of that revenue with the startup, according to the proposed arrangement as described to investors.
“Tesla has learned a lot from discussions with engineers at xAI that have helped accelerate achieving unsupervised FSD, but there is in need to license anything from xAI,” Musk posted late on Saturday on his social media platform X, including a voice assistant in its electric cars and software to power its humanoid robot Optimus.
TechCrunch reported Elon Musk has denied a report that one of his companies, Tesla, has discussed sharing revenue with another of his companies, xAI, so that it can use the startup’s AI models.
Writing on his social media platform X, (formerly Twitter) Musk said he hadn’t read the WSJ story, but he described a post summarizing the report as “not accurate.”
Musk founded xAI as a competitor to OpenAI (which he founded but eventually left). TechCrunch reported earlier this year that as part of the pitch for xAI’s $6 billion funding round, the startup outlined a vision where its models would be trained on data from Musk’s various companies (Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and X), and its models could then improve technology across those companies.
Tesla shareholders have sued Musk over the decision to start xAI arguing that Musk has diverted talent and resources from Tesla to what is essentially a competing company.
In my opinion, I think Elon Musk is going to do whatever he wants to with his various companies. It is unclear to me what – exactly – he wants to do with them.