Tesla CEO Elon Musk told Nvidia to send AI processors to his other companies, X and xAI, before Tesla, CNBC reported on Tuesday.
This news suggests that Musk is focusing more on developing artificial intelligence outside of Tesla. Some shareholders worry that he might not be fully committed to Tesla while managing other companies.
This change happened before a big vote by Tesla shareholders about Musk’s pay package.
An internal memo from Nvidia in December said, “Elon is prioritizing X H100 GPU cluster deployment at X instead of Tesla, redirecting 12,000 processors that were supposed to go to Tesla to X instead.”
The memo also said that 12,000 processors originally meant for X in January and June would now go to Tesla.
Because of this change, Tesla will get over $500 million worth of processors later than expected.
Musk explained on X that Tesla didn’t have enough space to use the Nvidia processors. He said they’re almost finished expanding their factory in Texas, where they’ll use 50,000 processors for training their self-driving software.
Earlier this year, Musk said Tesla would use more of Nvidia’s advanced chips and spend $10 billion on AI to improve their self-driving software and robotics.
Musk is also working on AI at X and xAI, especially for a chatbot called Grok. xAI, launched by Musk in 2023, raised $6 billion in funding last month.
Tesla shareholders will vote on June 13 on a pay package for Musk that’s considered one of the biggest for a CEO in America.
In January, Musk said on X that he’s not comfortable making Tesla a leader in AI and robotics without having control over a big part of the company’s voting power.
Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Nvidia declined to comment.
