‘Blade Runner 2049’ company takes on Elon Musk in lawsuit over Tesla Cybercab event

Film and television studio Alcon Entertainment filed a lawsuit Monday against Tesla, Elon Musk and Warner Bros. Discovery for allegedly using footage from the movie “Blade Runner 2049” without permission during a live Cybercab presentation earlier this month.

The complaint, filed in federal court in Los Angeles, alleges that Alcon had rejected a request from Warner Bros. to use the firm’s images for Tesla’s Cybercab presentation, which took place at Warner Bros. Burbank, Calfornia studio lot, only for Tesla to use AI-created images that mirrored the film for the event.

During the Cybercab presentation, Musk gave a speech while a screen showed an image of a man in a long coat overlooking a ruined orange city for 11 seconds. The complaint claims that beyond those 11 seconds, the video had an ongoing life after being shared by Musk, Tesla, X and others, resulting in “millions of total views.”

“The economic magnitude of the misappropriation here was substantial,” the plaintiffs allege. “Alcon has spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars building the BR2049 brand into the famous brand it is now.”

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Tesla’s robotaxi at an unveiling event in Los Angeles on Oct. 10, 2024, in a still image taken from a video. (Tesla/Handout via Reuters/Reuters)

Alcon also claims this falsely suggested there was a relationship between the entertainment company and Tesla. The lawsuit points to Musk as the reason he didn’t want to have that relationship, taking personal shots at the Tesla CEO in the process, calling him “problematic.”

“Any prudent brand considering any association with Tesla must take into account Musk’s massively amplified, highly politicized, capricious and arbitrary behavior, which at times devolves into hate speech,” the lawsuit states. It states that “a potential brand affiliation with Tesla is even more problematic” if a company does not share “Musk’s extreme political and social views(.)”.

“Alcon did not want BR2049 to be affiliated with Musk, Tesla, or any of Musk’s companies, for all of these reasons,” the complaint says.

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Denis Villeneuve, the film’s director, second from left; and cast members Ryan Gosling, left; Ana de Armas, second from the right; and Harrison Ford attend a photo call for the film ‘Blade Runner 2049’ in Paris on September 20, 2017. (Reuters/Charles Platiau/Reuters)

Neither Tesla nor the plaintiff’s attorneys responded to FOX Business’ inquiries about the lawsuit.

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Tesla’s robotaxi is shown at an unveiling event in Los Angeles on Oct. 10, 2024, in a still image taken from a video. (Tesla/Handout via Reuters/Reuters)

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In a statement, Alcon said that “the defendants’ conduct is likely to cause confusion among customers of Alcon’s ‘Blade Runner’ brand, including those with whom it is partnering for its upcoming series ‘Blade Runner 2099.’ for Amazon Prime.”

Reuters contributed to this report.