Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has never tried to hide the science fiction influences that inspire his companies.
But now Musk’s enthusiasm for film has landed him in hot water, as the Blade Runner 2049 creator is suing the billionaire tech boss over Tesla’s Robotaxi footage.
At the “We, Robot” event on October 10, Musk showed off a stylized image that bore a striking resemblance to one of Ryan Gosling’s key scenes from the film.
However, Alcon Entertainment, the film’s production company, says it has explicitly rejected a request to use stills from the film during the launch of Tesla’s self-driving Robotaxi.
The company claims Tesla used an AI-powered image generator to create fake promotional images based on scenes from Blade Runner 2049.
Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros Studios (who organized the event) are now all facing a lawsuit for using the iconic footage from the film without permission.
The lawsuit accuses those involved of “false endorsement” and threatens that the “financial magnitude of the embezzlement here was substantial.”
Elon Musk is being sued by the makers of Blade Runner 2049 for using images allegedly created using AI to resemble the film (pictured) to promote the launch of the Tesla Robotaxi
The images mentioned in the lawsuit were shown during Musk’s keynote presentation at the ‘We, Robot’ event.
As part of the Robotaxi unveiling, Musk showed a slide asking, “What kind of world do we want to live in?”
The screen then changed to show an apparent AI-generated image of a lone figure wearing a dust coat and standing in front of an orange-tinted city.
Musk then said: “You see a lot of science fiction movies where the future is dark and gloomy, where it’s not a future you want to be in.
‘I love Blade Runner, but I don’t know if we want that future. Maybe we want that duster he’s wearing, but not the gloomy apocalypse.”
A video of the event where the alleged fake footage was shown is still live on YouTube and has been viewed more than two million times at the time of writing.
Alcom Entertainment claims that Tesla and Warner Bros, who had distributed Blade Runner 2049 when it was released, contacted Alcom Entertainment earlier that day to request permission to use stills from the film.
However, the CEO of Alcom Entertainment has “firmly rejected” the request for any association between the Blade Runner 2049 brand and Elon Musk or any of his companies.
Alcom Entertainment, the makers of Blade Runner 2049, say they had specifically denied a request earlier that day to use footage from the film (pictured). They accuse Telsa of using AI-generated images for ‘fake endorsement’
While the image isn’t identical to any scene in the film, the lawsuit claims it was created using AI to make it look like it could have come from Blade Runner 2049.
In this regard, it may be notable that Musk is the CEO and owner of xAI, which launched an AI image generator earlier this year.
The lawsuit reads: “It all gave off the scent of a barely contrived excuse to tie Tesla’s cybertaxi to powerful Hollywood brands, at a time when Tesla and Musk are at odds with Hollywood.”
Alcom Entertainment seems particularly annoyed by the use of the image, because it has several actual brand deals with car companies with “dollar price tags in the eight figures.”
The production company says it is currently in discussions with other car brands about deals based on the upcoming Blade Runner 2049 television series, complaining that Musk’s actions are “likely to cause confusion.”
The lawsuit states, “This was all clearly in bad faith and a deliberately malicious move by Defendants to make the otherwise stilted and stiff content of the joint WBDI-Tesla event more appealing to the global audience.”
Moreover, the company complains that it is particularly harmful if its brand is associated with Elon Musk.
The lawsuit writes: “In addition to these more ordinary commercial issues, there is the problematic Musk himself.
The manufacturing company specifically complained that the “highly politicized, erratic and arbitrary behavior” of Elon Musk (pictured) made the association with their brand particularly damaging to the company’s reputation.
“Any sensible brand considering a partnership with Tesla should consider Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, erratic and arbitrary behavior, which at times veers into hate speech.”
Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros have not yet issued a statement in response to the lawsuit.
However, this isn’t the first time Musk has come under fire for allegedly appropriating designs from science fiction films.
The event ‘We, Robot’ was named after an apparent reference to the 1950 novel ‘I, Robot’ by Isaac Asimov, which was adapted into a film of the same name in 2004.
After the October event, “I, Robot” director Alex Proyas accused Musk of stealing his ideas.
On X, formerly Twitter, the Australian-Egyptian filmmaker wrote: “Hey Elon, can I please have my designs back?”
Mr Proyas then posted photos of futuristic technology from ‘I, Robot’ next to three extremely similar Tesla products: Optimus, Robovan and Robotaxi.
Many on social media pointed out that the Robotaxi resembles the ‘Audi RSQ’, a concept car with swinging ‘butterfly doors’ and self-driving capabilities, developed by Audi for use as a product placement.
Earlier this month, Elon Musk was accused of stealing designs by the director of the 2004 film “I, Robot.” The director pointed out the similarities between the Tesla Robotaxi (left) and the Audi RSQ concept car used in the film (left)
Similarly, Tesla’s Robovan appears to share a similar design to USR Robot Transport’s automated cargo truck, which is used to transport robots in the film.
However, many commenters on
One commenter wrote: “Be honored.
“What you did with CGI and a green screen, @elonmusk did in reality.”
Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. did not respond to MailOnline’s request for comment.