Washington (EFE).- Elon Musk confirmed this Tuesday that he diverted processors manufactured by Nvidia for artificial intelligence (AI) applications intended for Tesla to two of his companies, the social network leaked by the American network CNBC.
In his X account, Musk justified the decision: “Tesla couldn’t use Nvidia chips so they would have been stockpiled. The southern extension of Giga Texas is almost complete. It will contain 50,000 H100 to train FSD (Full Self Driving, Tesla’s driving assistance system).”
Musk exaggerated to obtain the products
CNBC revealed emails to which it has had access, in which Nvidia (the main producer of chips for AI applications in the world) points out that Musk, CEO of Tesla, “exaggerated” Tesla’s plans to have the processors.
Unlike Tesla, which is a publicly traded company, X and xAI are personally owned by Musk.
In April, Musk assured Tesla investors that by the end of the year he would acquire tens of thousands of Nvidia processors, called H100, and that Tesla would invest $10 billion in AI development.
One of the Nvidia emails to which CNBC has had access, dated December 2023, states that Musk “is prioritizing the installation of H100 GPUs in X instead of Tesla” by redirecting the 12,000 H100 GPUs to the social network destined for Tesla in December.
“In exchange, X’s original orders of 12,000 H100s for January and June will be redirected to Tesla,” the memo added.
Tesla shares opened lower this Tuesday after the publication of the CNBC information.
Payment plan
On June 13, Musk faces a decisive vote by Tesla shareholders who have to decide whether to endorse his controversial payment in company stock options worth about $50 billion.
The payment, the result of a 2018 agreement between Musk and Tesla’s board of directors, was annulled in January of this year by a US judge, who determined that it was excessive and was approved without shareholders having adequate information.
Ahead of the June 13 vote, at least two large US advisory companies recommended shareholders oppose the payment of compensation, considered one of the highest in the country’s history.
