On September 7, Tesla CEO Elon Musk denied reports that his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, had entered negotiations with Tesla about future revenue sharing in exchange for Tesla accessing xAI's technology and resources.
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that, according to a proposed arrangement described to investors, Tesla would license xAI's AI models to support the development of its driver assistance software and full self-driving technology, granting xAI a share of the revenue from these operations.
The Wall Street Journal also cited sources familiar with the matter, stating that xAI would assist in developing other Tesla features, including voice assistants in electric vehicles and software powering Tesla's humanoid robot, Optimus.
The report added that the terms of any revenue-sharing agreement between xAI and Tesla would depend in part on how much Tesla relies on xAI's technology. Allegedly, xAI executives had discussed splitting revenue from Tesla's full self-driving system.
xAI could not be reached for comment regarding the report.
In response, Musk posted on the social media platform X, saying: "Tesla has learned a lot from discussions with xAI engineers, which helps accelerate the development of unsupervised full self-driving (FSD). But Tesla does not need to license anything from xAI." Musk also called the report "inaccurate."
Musk founded xAI last year to compete with Microsoft-backed OpenAI, raising concerns that Musk might allocate some of Tesla's resources to xAI.
Musk has previously stated that xAI will "help advance full self-driving technology and build new Tesla data centers." He also mentioned the potential integration of xAI's chatbot, Grok, with Tesla's software.
In July of this year, Musk revealed that he and the Tesla board would discuss a $5 billion investment in xAI.
