Elon Musk has dismissed claims that his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, has been discussing sharing future Tesla revenue in exchange for access to xAI’s technology and resources. According to The Wall Street Journal, Tesla was considering licensing xAI’s AI models to enhance its driver-assistance and full self-driving (FSD) technologies, with potential revenue-sharing between the two entities.
Musk quickly responded via his social media platform, X, stating, “Tesla has learned a lot from discussions with engineers at xAI that have helped accelerate achieving unsupervised FSD, but there is no need to license anything from xAI. ” He called the report “not accurate.”
The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, suggested that xAI would support the development of various Tesla features, including a voice assistant for electric vehicles and software for the company’s humanoid robot, Optimus. The publication also noted that a proposed revenue-sharing agreement between xAI and Tesla could be based on how extensively Tesla utilized xAI’s technology compared to its in-house developments. A potential even split of FSD revenue was reportedly discussed among xAI executives.
xAI, which Musk launched last year to compete with Microsoft-backed OpenAI, has raised concerns over whether Tesla’s resources might be used to support the AI startup. Musk mentioned that xAI could assist in advancing Tesla’s full self-driving capabilities and build the company’s new data center. He also suggested integrating xAI’s chatbot, Grok, with Tesla’s systems.
In July, Musk revealed that he and Tesla’s board would discuss a $5 billion investment in xAI, but no further details have been made public.
