Tesla CEO Elon Musk's xAI required employees to surrender biometric data, according to a new Wall Street Journal report. The report couldn't have appeared at a worse time for the embattled tech titan.
What's happening?
On Nov. 4, the business-focused Wall Street Journal published an in-depth look at several pivotal issues Musk currently faces.
The piece addressed Musk's single-minded focus on an AI "arms race" and his deeply controversial pay package, proposed by the electric vehicle manufacturer's board.
The article hit two days before today's highly anticipated shareholder vote on the compensation proposal, which could be worth $1 trillion.
High-profile Tesla "whales," or influential and sometimes institutional shareholders, have publicly signaled plans to vote no. This group notably included Norway's sovereign wealth fund. External advisory firms have also advised shareholders to vote against the proposal.
While making a case for Musk's pay, Tesla's board asserted it was needed to "incentivize Elon to focus his energies on Tesla." Two days before the Nov. 6 vote, the WSJ's report implied Musk's "energies" were focused on anime-style chatbots modeled on unwilling employees.
The paper obtained a recording of an April xAI meeting. In the meeting, company lawyer Lily Lim said the company would "need to collect biometric data from employees to train the chatbots." The WSJ also obtained a document detailing the demand.
Employees received a form to sign granting broad permissions, including the right for xAI "to reproduce and distribute their faces and voices" in perpetuity. Several balked, fearing their likenesses would be sold and used outside xAI.
One week later, they were given a notice stating that providing "such data [was] a job requirement to advance xAI's mission."
Why is this important?
For Musk, the timing of the Wall Street Journal's report was catastrophic. It reinforced the notion that Tesla and electric vehicles remained low on his list of priorities.
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Musk has been aggressively investing his time and effort in artificial intelligence and publicly feuding with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. The WSJ solidified the impression that he'd put Tesla on the back burner.
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Absolutely 👍 In addition to ostensibly neglecting EV adoption, Musk's sharp pivot to AI introduced further environmental concerns.
OpenAI, headed by Musk's former friend, has been consistently opaque on the firm's ecological impact. AI data centers have been springing up across the U.S. in the thousands. Even without corporate disclosures, their impact is discernible.
AI data centers are resource-gobblers, draining water resources and disrupting communities.
Data centers don't just use massive quantities of energy either. They're a major reason energy bills have been skyrocketing across the U.S.
What's being done about it?
Ultimately, Tesla's shareholders perhaps held the most sway over Musk's "focus" and "energies" as they prepared to vote on his pay package on Nov. 6.
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