George Hotz first came to fame a decade ago after cracking open the original iPhone. A few years later, Sony responded negatively to his hacking of the PS3. These days, Hotz is focused on the problem of autonomous driving, creating headlines after teaching his Acura ILX to drive itself.

His startup, comma.ai, made news last year when the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration questioned the company's plans. Hotz soon pivoted to a free release of the product—now called Open Pilot—instead. Open Pilot currently only works with a handful of Acura and Honda vehicles, but it looks like Hotz was planning on adding Tesla support as well. Then the electric vehicle maker's legal team got involved.

According to Electrek, Hotz was planning on buying a Tesla Model S with the latest HW2 sensors until Tesla's legal office reached out to him just before delivery. Hotz told Electrek that Tesla's lawyers specifically called to remind him that intellectual property theft is a crime. Hotz told the car site he's now concerned about buying a car from "a company that has ssh (Secure Shell) access to all the cars.” As Tesla owners who have been in high-profile crashes may know all too well, the company has no compunction about accessing data logs from specific cars when it feels it's being misrepresented.

Hotz and Tesla also have a bit of history; the company tried unsuccessfully to woo him with a job back when it still used Mobileye's optical sensor platform. At the time, Hotz was rather uncomplimentary about that Israeli company, which has since parted ways with Tesla rather acrimoniously.