Elon Musk Says Tesla Is Open To Licensing Out Autopilot And Other EV Tech

"In the same way that maybe Android is helpful to the phone industry as sort of a general standard, like, we could potentially open source more code," Elon Musk said during a Twitter Space session with Ford chief Jim Farley in May. Musk made the comment soon after it was announced that Ford EVs will get access to Tesla's Supercharger network.

Now, Musk is in the mood to license Tesla's most prized automotive gem: Autopilot tech. Replying to a Twitter post detailing Tesla's lead in the EV industry, Musk mentioned that his company wants to help rival brands, too. Musk subsequently added that in the way Tesla opened its Supercharger network, the company is also "happy to license Autopilot/FSD or other Tesla technology." 

Tesla has cultivated quite a reputation for open-sourcing its entire patent portfolio all the way back in 2014. Musk said in a Tesla blog post at the time that the entire world would benefit if Tesla and other electric car makers could agree on "a common, rapidly-evolving technology platform." Those were different times, though, when Tesla was operating at a much smaller scale and Autopilot wasn't the controversial system that it is today.

Now, Musk's offer isn't a philanthropic endeavor to redeem humanity from the environmental burden of gas-guzzling cars. Licensing only means the automaker that eventually bites will have to pay a fee for every car in which the Autopilot tech is used, just the same way Arm collects royalty for its chip design. But the bigger question is, who will embrace Tesla's Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) tech?

In 2016, Musk claimed at a conference that "a Model S and Model X at this point can drive autonomously with greater safety than a person." Multiple accidents happened in the years that followed, some allegedly due to issues with the Autopilot system in Tesla cars.

Interestingly, when Musk's claims about Tesla Autopilot tech were brought forth in a lawsuit involving a fatal crash, Musk's defense argued that those statements were possibly deepfakes. In January, another bombshell allegation dropped in which it was claimed that early promotional videos for the self-driving tech weren't real, but staged. In light of these things, there's a big question with no clear answer: given Tesla's checkered track record with its in-house Autopilot tech, would any rival EV maker be willing to utilize the system in its own cars?