Elon Musk, Tesla sued for Blade Runner AI robotaxi ripoff

Elon Musk, his car company Tesla and Warner Brothers Discovery were sued Monday over their alleged artificial intelligence-fueled copyright infringement of images from the film “Blade Runner 2049” to promote Tesla’s robotaxi concept.

The lawsuit by the movie’s producer, Alcon Entertainment, says that the mega-billionaire Musk and the other defendants requested permission to use “an iconic still image” from “Blade Runner 2049” for the Oct. 10 event hyping the Cybercab at Warner Brothers Discovery’s studio lot in Burbank, California. That request was denied.

The Cybercab is Tesla’s concept of a “dedicated robotaxi” that the company says it wants to produce by 2027, and sell for under $30,000.

“Alcon refused all permissions “and adamantly objected to Defendants suggesting any affiliation between BR2049 and Tesla, Musk or any Musk-owned company,” the civil suit in Los Angeles federal court alleges.

“Defendants then used an apparently AI-generated faked image to do it all anyway,” according to the suit, which says the defendant’s actions constituted “a massive economic theft.”

During the Cybercab event “this faked image” was shown on the second presentation slide on a live stream for 11 seconds as Musk spoke.

“During those 11 seconds, Musk tried awkwardly to explain why he was showing the audience a picture of BR2049 when he was supposed to be talking about his new product,” the suit says. “He really had no credible reason.”

CNBC has requested comment from Alcon and the defendants in the lawsuit, which was first reported by The New York Times. The suit’s claims include copyright infringement and false endorsement.

The suit alleges that the financial impact of the misappropriation “was substantial,” noting that Alcon currently is in talks with other automotive brands about potential partnerships with Alcon’s “Blade Runner 2099 television series currently in production.”

The complaint also says the “problematic Musk” is an issue in the case, and that Alcon did not want its “Blade Runner” sequel film “to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any Musk company.”

Alcon’s suit says, “Any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account.”

“If, as here, a company or its principals do not actually agree with Musk’s extreme political and social views, then a potential brand affiliation with Tesla is even more issue- fraught,” the suit said.

Musk is a major backer of Donald Trump’s Republican presidential campaign, and often makes incendiary comments on X, the social media site that he owns.

For example, in March he spread baseless rumors via X that “cannibal hordes” of Haitians were migrating to the U.S.

Last week, Musk boosted false and debunked conspiracies about Dominion Voting machines used to count votes in federal and other elections.

Musk has promised Tesla shareholders a robotaxi for more than a decade.

However, Tesla has never produced a vehicle that is safe to use without a human ready to steer or brake at any time.