Musk’s AI Side Gig Should Keep Its Distance From Tesla
Any deal that directs company money, or revenue, to the CEO’s other artificial intelligence venture detracts for the EV maker’s lofty valuations.
Musk tends to treat his companies as parts of a unified whole.
Photographer: Apu Gomes/Getty Images
The all-in view of Tesla Inc. was summed up in a line from a report this summer by one of the more all-in analysts covering the company: “The car is to Tesla what the video game chip is to Nvidia. The car is to Tesla what selling books is to Amazon.” Morgan Stanley’sAdam Jonas was arguing that Tesla is morphing from a maker of electric vehicles to an artificial intelligence and robotics powerhouse.1 On this reading, a Tesla isn’t just a box-on-wheels with a battery but an AI-delivery vehicle. Chief Executive Elon Musk also touts this thesis, declaring with typical bravado: “If somebody doesn't believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company.”
An asterisk on that statement might be in order. This weekend, the Wall Street Journal reported that xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence side gig to his social media side gig, X, has floated the possibility of licensing its models to aid Tesla’s autonomous driving ambitions in exchange for a revenue-sharing deal. Musk dismissed the story over the course of several tweets, including calling it “nonsense.”