Elon Musk told Ron Baron he's building a chip that will be 2 to 3 times better than NVIDIA - at 10% of the cost

[soAsian]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2064102037193695404

"I have the entire physical design of the chip laid out in memory - I can visualize the whole thing".

 

[Barnsley]

His online army will there to support.

Dont worry for Musk

 

[coldsolder215]

Yeah I remember when I was new to the game and didn't know what I didn't know and assumed I could do whatever I wanted without repercussion. Got laid off 3 years later.

 

[blueone]

10% of the cost, or 10% of the price? Nvidia's gross margins on GPUs are at least 75%... I hope Musk uses more precision in his mental physical design than his bravado statements.

It is also interesting to ask, where are the EUV machines coming from? All of the other fab machinery necessary from back-ordered companies like Applied Materials, Lam Research, KLA, Tokyo Electron? And it's all going to be up and running in three years? With a team that probably hasn't worked together before? Color me skeptical.

Maybe there is one way... Musk could acquire IFS from Intel.

 

[Markwrob]

Will Elon acquire IFS, then set up a cot in each fab, and have the teams open the SMIF pods and start digging around? Maybe while he has a cheeseburger and a cigar. Oy vay!

 

[Xebec]

10% of the cost, or 10% of the price? Nvidia's gross margins on GPUs are at least 75%... I hope Musk uses more precision in his mental physical design than his bravado statements.

For the math to work, Musk would end up needing a chip that is 3X more efficient per die area for whatever the use case is, at comparable (or better) yields.

A 75% margin means Nvidia is making $3 for every $4 sold, reducing the margin to $0 gives you your first ~ 3X improvement in cost.

3X more efficient per die area for a specific function doesn't seem implausible given Nvidia has been projecting >100X improvements in some use cases between Hopper and Vera Rubin.

..

That said - this is definitely a hubris conversation, and there's never going to be enough technical details available to make a judgment during a call/podcast like this.

 

[blueone]

That said - this is definitely a hubris conversation, and there's never going to be enough technical details available to make a judgment during a call/podcast like this.

I agree. Musk should take the advice of my early career mentor. My mentor advocated "Precision, Rigor, and Clarity". Musk communicates with none of these.

It's amazing that Musk is the richest person in the world, considering his, uh, lack of discipline and sensitivity to the impact of what he says on others. Two of our children were and are shopping for EVs this year. Both adamantly refuse to consider a Tesla because of Musk's communications. One chose a Hyundai, and the other is on the waitlist for a new Rivian. I warned both I thought the Model Y was a better deal overall, but their pushback was absolute. I wonder if they'll refuse to use Starlink Internet on airline flights to spite Musk, even if it's free.

 

[Xebec]

Both adamantly refuse to consider a Tesla because of Musk's communications. One chose a Hyundai, and the other is on the waitlist for a new Rivian. I warned both I thought the Model Y was a better deal overall, but their pushback was absolute. I wonder if they'll refuse to use Starlink Internet on airline flights to spite Musk, even if it's free.

Found the family redditors ;-)

EDIT: Hope they don't run into the scenario where if the Hyaundai battery fails, they ask more for a new battery than the price of a whole new EV -- https://globalnews.ca/news/10103753/electric-car-shock-50000-battery/ (this has happened a few times)