FILE PHOTO: xAI logo is seen near computer motherboard in this illustration taken January 8, 2024. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
(Reuters) -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 no need to license anything from xAI," Musk posted late on Saturday on his social media platform X, adding that the report is "not accurate."
The Journal, citing people familiar with the matter whom it did not identify, said xAI would support the development of other features for Tesla, including a voice assistant in its electric cars and software to power its humanoid robot Optimus.
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 report said, adding that xAI executives have discussed an even revenue split from Tesla's FSD.
xAI could not be reached for a comment.
Musk launched xAI last year to compete with Microsoft-backed OpenAI. It sparked concerns that he might allocate some resources of the automaker to the AI company.
He has said xAI would be "helpful in advancing full self-driving and in building up the new Tesla data center," adding that there were opportunities to integrate xAI's chatbot, Grok, with Tesla's software.
In July, the billionaire CEO said he and the Tesla board would discuss a $5 billion investment in xAI.
(Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru; Editing by William Mallard)
