CEO Elon Musk has asked NVIDIA to send 12 thousand NVIDIA H100 artificial intelligence processors its companies X and xAI instead of Tesla. NVIDIA’s emails on the matter also indirectly suggest an exaggerated picture of Tesla’s purchases, as reported by CNBC.
Earlier, Elon Musk said that he could turn Tesla «into a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics». This, he said, would require a lot of expensive NVIDIA processors. During Tesla’s first-quarter earnings call in April, Musk said that the company would increase the number of H100 chips from 35 thousand to 85 thousand by the end of this year. A few days later, he also wrote in a post on X that Tesla would spend $10 billion «on combined learning and artificial intelligence» this year.
But emails from senior NVIDIA personnel circulated within the company suggest that Musk provided shareholders with an exaggerated picture of Tesla’s purchases. NVIDIA’s correspondence also suggests that Musk diverted a significant batch of artificial intelligence chips that were reserved for Tesla to the X and xAI. Tesla shares fell 1% after the news.
With his request, Musk has delayed the automaker’s receipt of more than $500 million for GPUs for at least several months, which is likely to delay planned work and research. The new information also underscores the escalating conflict between Musk and some Tesla shareholders, who question whether he will fulfill his obligations while managing a number of other companies and transferring funds between them. It is worth noting that Tesla provides Musk with the largest portion of his wealth.
X and xAI are closely intertwined. In November, Musk wrote: «X Corp investors will own 25% of xAI». In addition, xAI uses some capacity in X’s data centers to train and operate the Grok chatbot.
Tesla shareholders do have reason to be concerned. The company is experiencing an alarming drop in sales, partly due to an aging electric vehicle lineup and increased competition. Its reputation has also taken a hit in the U.S., according to the Axios Harris Poll 100, which attributes the drop to «antics» and political statements Musk. Overall, Tesla shares have fallen by 29% this year.