When Elon Musk introduced Tesla’s robotaxi, the Cybercab, earlier this month, he showed a slide during his presentation that probably looked familiar to fans of Blade Runner 2049. It showed the back of a man wearing a trench coat in front of a desert-like landscape with tall buildings in the background.
Now, a producer behind the film has sued him for copyright infringement. According to The New York Times, Alcon Entertainment accused him of “using AI-generated images that mirror scenes from Blade Runner 2049, including one that looks like Ryan Gosling.”
It said it had previously denied a request from Musk, Tesla and Warner Bros. Discovery to use images from the film as part of the Cybercab event. The companies were also named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Alcon called Tesla’s use of AI to create images nearly identical to scenes from the film a “deliberately malicious ploy.” It argued that by linking the product announcement to the film, the automaker made the event “more appealing to a global audience” and “misappropriated the Blade Runner 2049 brand to help sell Tesla.”
In its suit, Alcon said the connection between Musk and his film has a financial impact on the company, even calling the defendants’ actions “economic theft on a massive scale” as it is currently in talks with other potential automotive partners for its upcoming Blade Runner 2099 television series.
“Any conscientious brand considering a Tesla partnership should take into account Musk’s massively amplified, highly political, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which at times veers into hate speech,” it reportedly wrote in its complaint.
It said it “strongly objects” to associating with Musk or any of his companies, and that Musk personally knew it had declined his company’s request.
The producer wrote, “He therefore personally knew and understood that the inclusion of ‘BR2049’ in the event presentation would be inappropriate and an unauthorized misuse of the goodwill of ‘BR2049’.” It’s worth noting that Musk mentioned Blade Runner during the event, saying that he loves the franchise but doesn’t know “if we want such a future.”
Musk is one of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s biggest supporters and is known for posting divisive, controversial tweets. He was also caught retweeting fake news before, including a doctored video of Kamala Harris.
Alcon called the movie still that Tesla allegedly copied from Blade Runner 2049 “one of the most iconic images.” We’ve taken the image above from Tesla’s live stream, and you can see a still from the film below.