Elon Musk said Tuesday that he expects Tesla and xAI will continue buying chips from semiconductor giants Nvidia and AMD, and possibly others.
Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, which now owns social media platform X, has already installed 200,000 GPUs at its Colossus facility in Memphis, Tennessee, the Tesla CEO told CNBC’s David Faber on Tuesday. XAI is also planning a 1 million GPU facility outside Memphis, Musk said.
He did not specify how many chips the company had already ordered and by which date they may be installed.
“A few years ago, I made a very obvious prediction, which is that the limitation on AI will be chips,” he said.
Last year, Musk directed Nvidia to send a large order of GPUs to xAI first, jumping the line ahead of Tesla.
At his autos business, Musk said Tesla’s Dojo supercomputer in Buffalo, New York, is already used for training its Autopilot and Optimus robotics systems. At xAI, Musk boasted on Tuesday, Colossus is the “most powerful training cluster in the world right now” with “over 200,000 GPUs training coherently.”
Musk’s choice to build in Memphis was hailed by city officials as transforming the region into a “high-tech manufacturing hub.”
But local communities there have protested the power- and water-hungry operation, specifically the way xAI has relied on natural gas-burning turbines to help power the supercomputer. The turbines emit smog-forming nitrogen oxides, precursors to ozone formation, which have been associated with higher risk of death from respiratory disease.
As CNBC previously reported, environmental advocates say xAI has likely “violated the Clean Air Act” and local permitting requirements for “major sources of air pollution” with its use of the turbines.
Musk said that he sees chips as the main factor limiting AI development today, but predicted that will change to “electrical equipment,” soon and then there will be a “fundamental electricity generation shortage,” for AI companies by as early as mid-2026.
China’s investments in power generation, Musk said, currently exceed those by the U.S. However, he added, the U.S. still has an “advantage in breakthrough innovation.”
“I think it’s somewhat of a cultural thing, which is that to have breakthrough innovation you have to question authority,” Musk said. “Fundamentally, you’re questioning the conventional wisdom when you do a breakthrough innovation.” In China, he said, people don’t “generally like to question authority.”
Faber asked Musk if xAI and Tesla might ever merge, a concept sometimes floated by Musk fans who view his portfolio of companies as part of the “Muskonomy,” rather than independent entities with obligations to distinct groups of investors.
Musk said it’s not something he’s currently thinking about, but “It’s not out of the question,” and “obviously would require Tesla shareholders support.”
Tesla and xAI do business together already.
The EV maker disclosed in a financial filing recently that xAI spent around $191 million in 2024 and $36.8 million through February 2025 on Tesla Megapacks, which are utility-scale energy storage systems.
