Blade Runner 2049 producers sue Elon Musk, Tesla, and Warner over AI-generated image used in Cybercab promotional event

HardwareBlade Runner 2049 producers sue Elon Musk, Tesla, and Warner over AI-generated image used in Cybercab promotional eventWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

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(Image credit: Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - APRIL 13: Elon Musk attends the 2024 Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on April 13, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

Blade Runner 2049 production company Alcon Entertainment is suing Tesla, Elon Musk, and Warner Bros. Discovery over their alleged use of AI-generated imagery based on the film in a promotional event for Tesla’s new Cybercab. The suit, available viaVariety, claims the defendants opted for the AI image after Alcon “refused all permissions and adamantly objected to Defendants suggesting any affiliation between BR2049 and Tesla, Musk or any Musk-owned company.”

That image was then used early in the Cybercab presentation, and lest anyone not make the connection Musk specifically referenced the film in his opening remarks. “I love Blade Runner, but I don’t know if we want that future,” he said. “I think we want that duster he’s wearing, but not the bleak apocalypse.”

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“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 lawsuit states.

“He really had no credible reason. Musk ostensibly invited the global audience to think about the Cybercab’s possibilities in juxtaposition to BR2049’s fictional future. But it all exuded an odor of thinly contrived excuse to link Tesla’s Cybercab to strong Hollywood brands at a time when Tesla and Musk are on the outs with Hollywood. Which of course is exactly what it was.”

The lawsuit also notes that Blade Runner 2049 is the only Hollywood movie to be used in the Cybercab promotion even though Warner also holds the rights to all the Mad Max films. Any one of those would have been better choices if the actual point was to illustrate areally shitty futurewe’d all rather avoid, the suit states—reasonably, I think. But that was not the point at all: The suit’s allegation is that the whole point was to make the event “more attractive to the global audience and to misappropriate BR2049’s brand to help sell Teslas.”

Making matters worse for Alcon is Musk’s “massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which sometimes veers into hate speech.” Alcon states in the lawsuit that it specifically did not want to be affiliated with Musk or his companies because of his behavior, which is why it not only refused to grant the use of Blade Runner 2049 material in the first place but “also expressly and clearly objected to any express or implied BR2049 affiliation with the event.”

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But now it’s caught up in it regardless, across thousands of re-posts and millions of views. “The false affiliation between BR2049 and Tesla is irreparably entangled in the global media tapestry, all as Defendants knew would inevitably happen,” the suit states.

This is the Blade Runner 2049 Tesla allegedly wanted to use in its We, Robot presentation:

(Image credit: Alcon Entertainment (submitted as Exhibit A in Alcon Entertainment v. Telsa Inc, Elon Musk, and Warner Bros Discovery Inc)

Still image from Blade Runner 2049 - Ryan Gosling walking away from his car in a post-apocalyptic landscape

This is what ultimately appeared in the presentation.

(Image credit: Tesla (submitted as Exhibit C in Alcon Entertainment v. Telsa Inc, Elon Musk, and Warner Bros Discovery Inc))

“Not this” image from Tesla’s October 2024 We, Robot event

All told, the use of the image represents “massive economic theft,” the suit claims, not only because of the fees lost on this “unauthorized association” but also because it “muddied the waters” for potential real brand partnerships based on the upcoming Blade Runner 2049spinoff television series.

This isn’t the first time in recent memory that one of Musk’s companies has been sued for doing whatever the hell it wants without regard for consequences. In September, Cards Against Humanityfiled a lawsuit against SpaceXfor trespassing on land it owned and destroying it “with gravel, tractors, and space garbage.” In that case, not unlike this one, SpaceX allegedly made a “lowball offer” for permission to use the land and when CAH refused, it went ahead and used it anyway.

I’ve reached out to Tesla for comment and will update if I receive a reply.

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