CNBC reports that an internal email from an NVIDIA employee stated that Elon Musk exaggerated when answering Tesla investors’ questions about the company’s plan to purchase GPUs in a shareholder meeting in April 2024.
At that time, Elon stated that Tesla would increase its purchase of NVIDIA’s H100 GPUs from 35,000 units to 85,000 units by the end of 2024. He also mentioned that the company would invest $10 billion in AI for use in cars, a move unprecedented in the industry.
In the same email, a NVIDIA executive mentioned that Elon provided inflated numbers to investors. Additionally, Elon sent 12,000 Tesla GPUs to his other company, X, working on xAI technology, causing delays in Tesla’s supercomputer development.
Elon chose to send 12,000 Tesla H100 GPUs to X for temporary use before returning them once X received their delayed GPUs. This decision raised concerns about Tesla’s shareholder dissent.
In a tweet on April 28, 2024, Elon Musk emphasized that companies not investing around $10 billion in AI for training and inference would struggle to compete.
In a separate dispute, Tesla shareholders raised concerns over Elon’s multiple roles as CEO of various companies affecting Tesla’s performance, overlapping benefits, and his compensation package, which shareholders did not approve.
The news of GPUs being diverted to X further fueled dissatisfaction among Tesla shareholders, as Musk had previously stated his intention to hold more than 25% of Tesla shares to secure voting rights.
Ars Technica noted that this is not the first time Elon has exhibited such behavior. In 2022, Tesla employees raised concerns about Elon’s allocation of company resources to Twitter/X, his private company.
TLDR: Elon Musk’s exaggerated claims about Tesla’s GPU purchases and allocation of resources to his other company have raised shareholder concerns and affected the company’s operations.
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