Musk demonstrates tremendous confidence in Tesla's proprietary AI chips!

On September 7th, Beijing time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed progress on Tesla's self-developed chips via social media, announcing that the AI5 chip has completed its design review and will become an "epic" product. Musk also indicated that the AI6 chip will achieve even greater breakthroughs building upon this foundation.

Simultaneously, Tesla's trillion-dollar compensation package for Musk has sparked heated discussions. Many investors and executive compensation analysts suggest this package is designed to retain Musk, address external concerns about Tesla's technological prospects, and provide major shareholders with sufficient justification to support this enormous compensation. However, some Tesla investors have called the compensation plan "irresponsible."

**Musk's Latest Statement on Chips**

According to recent reports, Musk posted on social media: "Just completed an excellent design review with the Tesla AI5 chip design team today! This chip will undoubtedly become a breakthrough product. The AI6 chip following closely behind is expected to become the finest AI chip to date."

Musk subsequently added: "It may not be the best automotive AI chip, but I believe the AI5 chip will likely become the best inference chip currently available for models with approximately 250 billion parameters or fewer. It has the lowest silicon cost and highest performance-to-power ratio, and the AI6 chip will achieve even greater breakthroughs on this foundation."

"Moving from developing two chip architectures to focusing on one architecture means all of Tesla's chip talent will concentrate on creating this exceptional chip. This now appears to be an obvious and correct decision. If you want to participate in developing 'life-saving chips,' we welcome you to join Tesla's chip team," Musk wrote.

Previously, on August 7th, foreign media reported that Tesla had decided to disband its internal Dojo supercomputer team, with project leader Peter Bannon also set to leave Tesla. This team was originally responsible for building Tesla's self-developed high-performance computing platform for training autonomous driving systems and artificial intelligence models.

At that time, Musk responded: "For Tesla, it makes no sense to divide resources and develop two completely different AI chips. Tesla's AI5, AI6, and subsequent chips excel in both training and inference. All efforts should be concentrated in this area." He added that in supercomputer clusters, integrating multiple AI5/AI6 chips onto single circuit boards is reasonable, whether for inference or training, which alone could reduce network wiring complexity and costs by several orders of magnitude.

Reports indicate that AI5 serves as a transitional or scenario-specific primary chip manufactured by TSMC, while AI6 represents the "unified heart" of Tesla's future AI ecosystem, to be manufactured by Samsung Electronics. In late July, Musk confirmed signing a $16.5 billion chip manufacturing agreement with South Korea's Samsung Electronics, with Samsung producing next-generation AI6 chips at its Texas facility.

Tesla has increasingly relied on external partners for chip procurement and computing resources in recent years, including NVIDIA, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), and Samsung Electronics. These companies provide Tesla with advanced GPUs, AI chips, and manufacturing capabilities, allowing Tesla to maintain high-level AI training capabilities without bearing the full costs of research, development, and hardware infrastructure.

Foreign media analysis suggests that dissolving the Dojo team reflects both strategic adjustments and cost-efficiency considerations. Building and maintaining internal supercomputing platforms requires high costs and long development cycles. With Tesla making substantial investments across multiple cutting-edge fields including autonomous driving, robotics, and energy, reducing self-developed hardware investments helps free up capital and human resources to accelerate commercial deployment.

**Musk's Trillion-Dollar Compensation Package Goes Viral**

This weekend, Tesla's trillion-dollar compensation package for Musk generated enormous online attention.

According to Tesla's announcement, this CEO performance award totals 423.7 million shares of Tesla common stock, representing 12% of adjusted outstanding shares. Obtaining these shares requires Musk to lead Tesla in achieving a series of operational targets, including delivering 20 million vehicles, achieving 10 million active Full Self-Driving (FSD) subscriptions, delivering 1 million Optimus humanoid robots, deploying 1 million autonomous robotaxis for commercial operation, and increasing company market capitalization from the current $1 trillion to at least $8.5 trillion.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives published a research report on Tesla's latest incentive plan, stating: "Tesla's board members are requesting shareholder approval for a long-term incentive plan for Musk. This plan aims to retain Musk and incentivize his continued leadership role, centered on a new stock plan where Musk receives compensation only upon achieving 'exceptional financial returns.'"

Wedbush noted that for Tesla, which is expanding into robotics and artificial intelligence markets, these targets set extremely high standards for Musk and his team. Despite requiring substantial investment in research and development and future product deployment, Tesla must achieve highly challenging adjusted EBITDA targets - starting with a $50 billion adjusted EBITDA goal and ultimately reaching $400 billion adjusted EBITDA over four consecutive quarters, balancing aggressive growth investments with expanded net profits.

Dan Ives stated: "Most of these incentive conditions were included in our 'three-step checklist' proposed in early July. We believed then that Tesla's board must take action to ensure Musk remains at Tesla through 2030. Now, the foundation supporting Musk's acceleration of current strategies and seizing future opportunities is in place. This move is a crucial step ensuring Musk continues as CEO at least until 2030 - as Tesla approaches one of the most important phases of its growth cycle, with the future of autonomous driving and robotics technology within reach."

Wedbush maintains its "Outperform" rating on Tesla stock with a target price of $500. Tesla shares rose 3.64% Friday to close at $350.84, with a current market capitalization of $1.13 trillion.

However, this massive compensation plan has also drawn criticism. "This compensation package places high hopes on the future development of robotics technology and may gain shareholder support. But it also raises broader social issues, as a relatively small number of capital holders receive enormous returns - a situation unlikely to continue and will inevitably face public pressure," said Taufiq Rahim, SpaceX investor and head of 2040 Consulting.

Kristin Hull, founder and CIO of Tesla investor Nia Impact Capital, called the compensation plan irresponsible. "This is investor capital that could be used for research and development or acquisitions - directions that would truly benefit Tesla long-term." She added that she is considering joining with other shareholders to challenge the compensation plan.

Regarding this compensation package, Tesla's three major external shareholders - Vanguard Group, BlackRock, and State Street - have not immediately indicated how they will vote. Public disclosures show that last year, Vanguard and BlackRock supported Musk's $56 billion compensation package, while State Street voted against it.