Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has never attempted to hide the science-fiction influences which inspire his companies. But now, Musk's enthusiasm for film has landed him in hot water as the maker of Blade Runner 2049 sues the billionaire tech boss over Tesla's Robotaxi images. During the'We, Robot' event on October 10, Musk showed a stylised image bearing a striking resemblance to one of Ryan Gosling's key scenes from the movie. However, Alcon Entertainment, the film's production company, says it had explicitly refused a request to use stills from the film during the launch of Tesla's self-driving Robotaxi. The company alleges that Tesla used an AI-powered image generator to create fake promotional imagery based on scenes from Blade Runner 2049.

The "financial magnitude of the misappropriation here was substantial," the lawsuit said. "Any prudent brand considering any Tesla partnership has to take Musk's massively amplified, highly politicised, capricious and arbitrary behaviour, which sometimes veers into hate speech, into account," it added. Alcon also accused the event organisers of "false endorsement" by suggesting a connection between the production company and Tesla. Warner Bros, which hosted the robotaxi launch event at one of its movie studios, was also the distributor of Blade Runner 2049 when it was released in 2017. The highly-anticipated sequel to the 1982 cyberpunk classic Blade Runner, starred Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas and Jared Leto, and won two Academy Awards.