By Frank Kamuntu
Elon Musk has a message for America’s business leaders—either prepare yourself for the AI revolution or start writing your corporate obituary.
At a juncture in time when Tesla’s CEO is cutting back on investments into new vehicle capacity, he is spending $10 billion this year alone to bulk up on AI training and inference, and position Tesla at the forefront of the industry for real-life applications outside of generative AI.
“Any company not spending at this level, and doing so efficiently, cannot compete,” he posted on X Sunday.
Spending on AI inference would primarily be targeted at his range of cars, a possible indication that he is preparing the ground for the next generation of his custom-designed Full Self-Driving (FSD) computer known as HW5.
The distinction between training and inference is important since close observers will know Musk is currently working on another major AI project, his humanoid robot dubbed Optimus after the 1980s cartoon vehicle that transformed into a sentient robot.
This bold and risky pivot toward AI—and by implication away from his previous focus on a tenfold increase in car sales to 20 million EVs annually—definitively answers the perennial question whether Tesla is an automaker or a tech company in favor of the latter.
Any typical auto executive would have long since invested in rejuvenating one of the oldest product ranges in the auto industry. For example, Tesla’s EV archrival, BYD, is pumping out one new model after another across its portfolio of brands with the help of its small army of 90,000 vehicle engineers.
Tesla will spend around $10B this year in combined training and inference AI, the latter being primarily in car. Any company not spending at this level, and doing so efficiently, cannot compete.— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 28, 2024
Musk however seems to view his cars more as an iPhone on wheels, a premium device for delivering high-margin software, that can be sold at lower profit since revenue will be recouped by offering services around the vehicle.
For the moment, that approach has not worked. Tesla has found itself forced to repeatedly cut prices to stimulate enough demand to keep his factories humming. Musk even recently resorted to slashing the price of his FSD software by a third.
Only 18 months ago, the idea of Tesla struggling to find customers seemed ludicrous, to borrow a favorite adjective of Musk. Yet China’s new generation of EV rivals are in a class of their own when it comes to value for money, and his own personal brand has been tarnished.
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