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Elon Musk confirms reallocating thousands of Nvidia AI chips from Tesla

20 points by practicalrs 2y ago

techostritch 2y ago
Elon seems to want all the benefits of a public company with none of the obligations. Either way seems more and more that he better be right up there on his high wire without a net.
- practicalrs 2y ago
  I'm not a company law expert. But IMO such actions would not be legal in the EU.
  - me_me_me 2y ago
    Its not legal anywhere. A publicly traded company is not your property. Its a legal entity. You cannot exchange any value between two just because you are majority owner of both. Otherwise elon with 51% could start Zesla (own 100% of it) and transfer all assets from Tesla to Zesla.
    - practicalrs 2y ago
      The value of the hardware is around $360 million. What can he get for acting to the detriment of the company in the US?
      - Zigurd 2y ago
        Evidently he can get a $50B payout
LunicLynx 2y ago
Where does it say that they were donated? This is misleading.
vessenes 2y ago
@dang misleading headline: editorial, not even quoting the Morningstar article. Diverted/sent both seem fair to the reporting.
- metadat 2y ago
  FYI- @ mentioning Dang doesn't summon him. If you feel something is wrong, it's infinitely better to email the mods hn@ycombinator.com.
  - vessenes 2y ago
    I understand that it’s best to say this in public, but my dang @ing has a surprisingly high response rate; I’m okay if that’s just cargo culting though. Kibo is probably still summonable: why shouldn’t dang ascend one day?
    - metadat 2y ago
      Yes, sometimes he may happen to see it and doesn't ignore it on purpose.
- practicalrs 2y ago
  Ok, I quoted article.
pdq 2y ago
June 4th. Not recent news. Although this is a clear case of self-dealing by Musk.
jpcfl 2y ago
Actual headline: "Elon Musk confirms reallocating thousands of Nvidia AI chips from Tesla"
metadat 2y ago
Is Musk taking $56 billion a year in annual compensation from Tesla?
- Zigurd 2y ago
  IANAL but I think the shareholder vote to give him that package does not immediately change the ruling that invalidated it. It helps Musk's appeal by showing that the shareholders support that payout.
siliconc0w 2y ago
Doesn't really make sense for elons companies to all build their own clusters. Hopefully there is some ownership involved for Tesla as far as the resulting models.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
vessenes 2y ago
The actual article with non incendiary headline is actually interesting. It sounds like Tesla’s data center buildout is slower than their chip appetite, or they are shifting responsibility and resources to xai. I wonder how their internal chip project is going.. normally a surplus of h100s might seem like they have some winning custom silicon, but I imagine if they did we would be hearing a LOT about it. With Tesla dealing with declining demand, and the cultural transition to a larger and more stable company, I understand why Elon would peel off AI, finance it with commercially reasonable contracts from Tesla, twitter, and spacex, and boom - you’ve got like the second highest revenue ai company in the world with arguably some of the most valuable proprietary data in the world, especially for the robotics / physical world stuff that’s coming, and it could be operating in that sweet spot he seems to like of massive growth operational + research scale out startup. I wonder if xai needs custom hardware to win. I don’t think so. But I’m also unsure what winning looks like: AGI? Home assistant robot? Should be a fun five years to see what they end up doing.
- CapcomGo 2y ago
  Doesn't Tesla being public prevent a lot of this?
  - vessenes 2y ago
    Not if the deal terms are commercially reasonable. NB, I have no information about these deals. Business judgment is something we rely on from boards and executives all the time. Lack of disclosure and unfair transfer pricing are huge no-nos, but the existence of deals that are fair and beneficial to a public company is in no way prevented in the US. EDIT: and, to be clear, while being publicly listed increases disclosure requirements, it doesn’t radically change your duties to shareholders as an exec/board member vs a private company. Once you have non-accredited investors on your cap table you owe them quite a lot in duty of care, regardless of listing venue for your stock. And of course you owe accredited investors a duty of care as well. Ultimately in the US we solve questions of fairness through adversarial legal proceedings, eg tbe SolarCity acquisition (deemed okay by the courts).

20 points by practicalrs 2y ago

Elon seems to want all the benefits of a public company with none of the obligations. Either way seems more and more that he better be right up there on his high wire without a net.

practicalrs 2y ago
I'm not a company law expert. But IMO such actions would not be legal in the EU.
- me_me_me 2y ago
  Its not legal anywhere. A publicly traded company is not your property. Its a legal entity. You cannot exchange any value between two just because you are majority owner of both. Otherwise elon with 51% could start Zesla (own 100% of it) and transfer all assets from Tesla to Zesla.
  - practicalrs 2y ago
    The value of the hardware is around $360 million. What can he get for acting to the detriment of the company in the US?
    - Zigurd 2y ago
      Evidently he can get a $50B payout

LunicLynx 2y ago

Where does it say that they were donated? This is misleading.

vessenes 2y ago

@dang misleading headline: editorial, not even quoting the Morningstar article. Diverted/sent both seem fair to the reporting.

metadat 2y ago
FYI- @ mentioning Dang doesn't summon him. If you feel something is wrong, it's infinitely better to email the mods hn@ycombinator.com.
- vessenes 2y ago
  I understand that it’s best to say this in public, but my dang @ing has a surprisingly high response rate; I’m okay if that’s just cargo culting though. Kibo is probably still summonable: why shouldn’t dang ascend one day?
  - metadat 2y ago
    Yes, sometimes he may happen to see it and doesn't ignore it on purpose.
practicalrs 2y ago
Ok, I quoted article.

pdq 2y ago

June 4th. Not recent news. Although this is a clear case of self-dealing by Musk.

jpcfl 2y ago

Actual headline: "Elon Musk confirms reallocating thousands of Nvidia AI chips from Tesla"

metadat 2y ago

Is Musk taking $56 billion a year in annual compensation from Tesla?

Zigurd 2y ago
IANAL but I think the shareholder vote to give him that package does not immediately change the ruling that invalidated it. It helps Musk's appeal by showing that the shareholders support that payout.

siliconc0w 2y ago

Doesn't really make sense for elons companies to all build their own clusters. Hopefully there is some ownership involved for Tesla as far as the resulting models.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

vessenes 2y ago

The actual article with non incendiary headline is actually interesting. It sounds like Tesla’s data center buildout is slower than their chip appetite, or they are shifting responsibility and resources to xai. I wonder how their internal chip project is going.. normally a surplus of h100s might seem like they have some winning custom silicon, but I imagine if they did we would be hearing a LOT about it. With Tesla dealing with declining demand, and the cultural transition to a larger and more stable company, I understand why Elon would peel off AI, finance it with commercially reasonable contracts from Tesla, twitter, and spacex, and boom - you’ve got like the second highest revenue ai company in the world with arguably some of the most valuable proprietary data in the world, especially for the robotics / physical world stuff that’s coming, and it could be operating in that sweet spot he seems to like of massive growth operational + research scale out startup. I wonder if xai needs custom hardware to win. I don’t think so. But I’m also unsure what winning looks like: AGI? Home assistant robot? Should be a fun five years to see what they end up doing.

CapcomGo 2y ago
Doesn't Tesla being public prevent a lot of this?
- vessenes 2y ago
  Not if the deal terms are commercially reasonable. NB, I have no information about these deals. Business judgment is something we rely on from boards and executives all the time. Lack of disclosure and unfair transfer pricing are huge no-nos, but the existence of deals that are fair and beneficial to a public company is in no way prevented in the US. EDIT: and, to be clear, while being publicly listed increases disclosure requirements, it doesn’t radically change your duties to shareholders as an exec/board member vs a private company. Once you have non-accredited investors on your cap table you owe them quite a lot in duty of care, regardless of listing venue for your stock. And of course you owe accredited investors a duty of care as well. Ultimately in the US we solve questions of fairness through adversarial legal proceedings, eg tbe SolarCity acquisition (deemed okay by the courts).