Elon Musk wants to get one thing straight among his many companies, and that is Tesla not needing a license from xAI to use its models and share its technologies. The renowned tech mogul also went on to explain the differences between Tesla's artificial intelligence meant for full driving (FSD) technology and xAI's focus on large language models (LLMs).
Furthermore, the billionaire also said that Tesla's AI for its electric vehicles is "vastly larger" compared to xAI's development, with each having its unique traits.
Elon Musk Clarifies Tesla Doesn't Need a License from xAI
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is pictured during a visit at the company's electric car plant in Gruenheide near Berlin, eastern Germany, on March 13, 2024, as employees resumed work after production had to be halted due to a suspected arson attack that caused a power outage.ODD ANDERSEN/AFP via Getty Images
A recent post by X owner, Elon Musk via his social media platform has clarified that Tesla does not need to "license anything" from xAI. This stems from a report that The Wall Street Journal shared yesterday about Tesla getting access to xAI's "resources" and "technology" in exchange for receiving some of the car company's revenues.
Musk made one thing clear, and it is with xAI and Tesla having discussions about helping develop the anticipated unsupervised FSD, and it does not need a licensing deal to do so.
The report from WSJ claimed that xAI's LLMs would be used on the FSD software as well as Tesla's Optimus to use as the humanoid robot's voice assistant.
Haven’t read the article, but the above is not accurate.
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.
Tesla's Real-World AI is 'Vastly Larger' vs. xAI's LLMs
Musk's post shared how Tesla and xAI differ in the AI industry, but are coexisting under his tutelage.
Tesla's AI developments have a "vastly larger context size" compared to an LLM as it processes video history from the electric vehicle's cameras. Moreover, it is "incredibly dense" that focuses on driving, and is operating on a "~300W computer" that has a bandwidth and memory lower than H100 GPUs.
On the other hand, xAI's models are "gigantic" said Musk, and are composed of compressed "human knowledge." Musk confirmed that it could not "possibly run" on Tesla's EV inference computers, and it is also not an option for Musk and his teams.
Artificial Intelligence from Elon Musk
One of the best-known things about Elon Musk is that he does not fear technology, with the renowned executive known for his massive gambles which faced scrutiny and successes over the past years. Take for example Tesla's FSD and its numerous accidents which greatly shocked the world despite its significant promises, now still seeing developments via the Tesla Dojo supercomputer.
It is also known that Musk was one of the co-founders and early investors behind OpenAI, but he has since left the ChatGPT-maker's company because of disputes.
However, more recently, the tech billionaire also launched xAI, his new AI startup which delivered the LLM and its generative AI chatbot, Grok, to which X users were given access.
Elon Musk may have faced issues with both Tesla and xAI's artificial intelligence developments, but these are still existing and will continue to do so, and go as far as to coexist. For now, there would be no sharing of technologies between Tesla and xAI, but that does not mean there is a need to license the technology, and Musk making it clear to the world.
