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If Tesla is an AI company, then why does the CEO own a separate Ai company?

Turbulent-Phone-8493 | 2025-10-27 15:26 | 566 views

Isn’t that a conflict of interest? This guy gets a trillion dollars?

Comments (120)
jiminuatron 2025-10-27 15:31

Tesla is a failing car company. The pullback from q3 sales will hit hard next quarter. Plot twist. None of them are AI companies. Just glorified chatbots and autosuggest.

Horror_Response_1991 2025-10-27 15:32

Because the board allows it.

riftwave77 2025-10-27 15:32

"It's a big club and you ain't in it"

riftwave77 2025-10-27 15:33

Don't worry. The barebones Model Y, the roadster and the model 2 will pump new life into the product offerings

R3luctant 2025-10-27 15:35

That way when the not a car company ai company buys the totes not failing ai company it can be framed as a positive and not as the owner of said ai company raiding the coffers of the car company.

valthonis_surion 2025-10-27 15:37

Don't forget about the Semi-Truck and all the house robots soon!

noobeddit 2025-10-27 15:39

he probly gonna make his cult shareholders buy his ai company

bikesnotbombs 2025-10-27 15:43

They aren't an AI company, that's all just low information fan boi hype from ppl that don't understand how tech works.  Leon moved engineers and Nvidia chips from Tesla to xAI.  They *may* have some level of in house AI for training fsd, but that's mostly an assumption.. and even if they do, there's no public way to consume or sell it, and judging by fsds capability obviously isn't very good if it does exist

User-no-relation 2025-10-27 15:44

My prediction is that after Q4 financials are out Tesla stock will start to crater and xAI will buy it. They may even spin out the car business and keep the fsd part. Eventually

LokeCanada 2025-10-27 15:45

Tesla is a car company that is valued as a tech company and being run as an investment firm (assets and profits run X, Twitter and a rocket company). Their future relies on tech (self driving capability).

[deleted] 2025-10-27 15:49

"Somehow, most Americans are dumber than the average American" - the new carlin is gonna be brutal.

User-no-relation 2025-10-27 15:50

I actually think it'll go the other way. Once Tesla stock crashes

bpm6666 2025-10-27 15:53

He will do the interesting ventures in companies were he owns higher stakes. But he still has to tell the story that Tesla will soar, because of Robots, AI,... He recently explained that robotaxis is the next big thing and Tesla has to increase their CapEx to handle the future demand. CapEx went down in the last quater

[deleted] 2025-10-27 15:54

CEO is a snake oil salesman. Tesla is AI, Tech, Robotics, Climate friendly and where ever there are govt subsidies, it’s all of it.

Turbulent-Phone-8493 2025-10-27 15:55

But as Tesla CEO he has a duty to shareholders to grow the company. Seems like a conflict of interest

Turbulent-Phone-8493 2025-10-27 15:57

Don’t they also have a fiduciary duty to shareholders

y4udothistome 2025-10-27 15:59

It’s a pyramid scheme!

kittenTakeover 2025-10-27 16:00

The guy literally redirected resources away from Tesla towards his privately held AI company that is a competitor. It's very clearly a conflict of interest. I don't know why anyone would trust him to do what's in the best interest of Tesla rather than X right now.

maclaren4l 2025-10-27 16:02

A pedo robot - really… look at the Grok AI story asking a kid to send nudes! Ban all Elon products with your money folks!

Hi_Doctor_Nick_ 2025-10-27 16:02

Yeah he wants it private so he has less scrutiny.

gwenver 2025-10-27 16:02

If Tesla is an AI company then why is its PE an order of magnitude higher than any other (real) AI company...

WrongThinkBadSpeak 2025-10-27 16:08

They are the shareholders

bpm6666 2025-10-27 16:11

If you look up conflict of interest in a lexikon you find a picture of Elon Musk.

Battle_of_BoogerHill 2025-10-27 16:13

Damn, I was still banking on the underground tesla-only superhighway!

Battle_of_BoogerHill 2025-10-27 16:14

He's the man we need

Distinct_Plankton_82 2025-10-27 16:14

A better question is why this world leading AI company is investing significantly less resources into R&D vs every other big AI company out there including xAI. You’ve got the likes of OpenAI, Google, Meta etc all pumping hundreds of billions into building out infrastructure. Tesla seems to want you to believe they can be a world leading AI company without spending even a 1/10th on R&D that all its competitors do because…. reasons.

valthonis_surion 2025-10-27 16:15

We’ll have the robots driving the cars for us, but the robots will just be telepresence offshored workers

[deleted] 2025-10-27 16:15

It’s always a grift.

samdeed 2025-10-27 16:19

And Full Self Driving will totally be ready this year!

Common-Violinist-305 2025-10-27 16:22

that is RealTesla talk. good question…answer is… cue smoke, mirrors: turn on pump n dump machine

surfnfish1972 2025-10-27 16:23

So Elon can move debt back and forth between companies and never pay it off.

Durzel 2025-10-27 16:24

If you want the simple answer - it's because probably at least 50-75% of the value of TSLA stock is predicated on Elon's involvement, and the enduring, credulous belief by Wall Street and retail that he will be at the forefront of every coming tech revolution. It doesn't matter what he does, since Tesla isn't valued on its fundamentals anyway. So long as he is nominally involved, the stock price continues to trend upwards. Until it doesn't.

ComicsEtAl 2025-10-27 16:25

Tesla is a floor wax company.

Beartrkkr 2025-10-27 16:34

They apparently have a fiduciary responsibility to booster Musk’s stock value.

ClassicT4 2025-10-27 16:35

Need the separate company to buy Tesla’s to make Tesla look like less of a failing company.

Engunnear 2025-10-27 16:36

fElon's real genius is in being able to recycle a narrative just by swapping "solar" out for "AI".

Battle_of_BoogerHill 2025-10-27 16:45

What can we say? Honda bots are more reliable than wankpanzers

ATX_native 2025-10-27 16:46

I mean Revenue is down 40% and the P/E shot past 300, it’s mind boggling.

ElJamoquio 2025-10-27 16:56

I made a little money this year effectively shorting Tesla stock. I guess I'll have to try that again.

ElJamoquio 2025-10-27 16:57

> credulous belief i think you're missing an 'in'

Durzel 2025-10-27 17:00

>i think you're missing an 'in' Nope, that would be the opposite of what I mean. Wall Street and co are credulous when it comes to Musk. If they were incredulous that would actually be a good thing.

Designer-Salary-7773 2025-10-27 17:13

Solarcity part deux

cassabree 2025-10-27 17:28

I constantly ask this question to Elon fanboys. Everyone is now willing to acknowledge Tesla’s car business is failing now that they can push the “it’s actually an AI company!” line. But… what are the products? Where’s the AI? Optimus robots? AFAIK the highest profile and most public one was the popcorn robot at the Tesla diner, and they had to take it off the floor, and have never put it back. So Tesla can’t even get their robot to reliably serve popcorn but Elon fanboys are saying they’re going to be shipping millions to consumers next year. “It’s an AI company” but the CEO is literally saying that if he’s not given _more_ money, he’s going to work on AI outside of Tesla. That’s some of the most abominably poor corporate leadership I’ve ever seen and nobody other than Elon could get away with it. It’s crazy that Tesla’s has been overvalued for 15 years on Elon’s false promises of FSD coming soon, and now in 2025 when it’s clearer than ever that FSD is not remotely close to coming soon… Tesla Is extra overvalued despite its plummeting revenue because Elon is making _new_ promises that he knows are impossible. Meanwhile Elon is mobilizing capital of his other companies to make his own companies buy cybertrucks to make Tesla’s metrics look better to angle himself to be able to fake the requirements to unlock his extra stock options.

VitaminPb 2025-10-27 17:29

The single lane wide superhighway with no way to exit if somebody’s car battery dies? That FSD doesn’t work in, even in the Vegas Loop?

cassabree 2025-10-27 17:30

The perverse incentive here is technically they do better by shareholders by feeding into Elon’s delusions because the stock price circlejerks itself higher. The company being honest about its financial situation and forecasts would implode the stock price. Until it pops.

wootnootlol 2025-10-27 17:31

One is building mechahitlers and other is building taxis for mechahitlers.

VitaminPb 2025-10-27 17:31

Bullebulle: lHey Rocky, watch me pull a new date guarantee out of my ass!”

cassabree 2025-10-27 17:32

I keep telling myself this. Wanted to do it in August when it was ~$350. We all know it’s overvalued but I would be down big if I had gone in then. Trying to call the timing for it is so dangerous

VitaminPb 2025-10-27 17:34

Not a chance. Even if the stock crashed like it should xAI wouldn’t have nearly enough cash to purchase the stock that is public, and you can’t just declare the stock worthless without declaring bankruptcy and going through a court.

RockitSheep 2025-10-27 17:41

The Tesla crash will be the everything crash. Municipal and pension fund exposure is huge as well as crypto overlap.

ElJamoquio 2025-10-27 17:45

if you'd said 'incorrect, credulous belief' I wouldn't have typed anything, fwiw

ElJamoquio 2025-10-27 17:46

Yeah. I'd been wanting to short Tesla since 2015, but didn't do it until ... early 2025? ... when it was just ridiculously overvalued. The market can stay irrational longer than I can stay solvent, for sure

User-no-relation 2025-10-27 17:48

Leveraged buyout buyout baby! Take on a fuck to be of debt to pay off the Tesla shareholders, i.e. Musk himself, and then once the dust settles spinoff the car business with all the debt and just keep the fsd part and no more debt on the books. Maybe keep the supercharger network too if he's a total troll, and let's face it he is. Tesla goes bankrupt and bought by someone else eventually

wesweb 2025-10-27 17:49

siri with more datasets

BajaRooster 2025-10-27 17:53

Musk MO - Find popular buzzword>attach futuristic moniker to it>promise profits and solutions next year>profit!

Turbulent-Phone-8493 2025-10-27 18:02

real fear

bobi2393 2025-10-27 18:03

I'd say it's for leverage against Tesla. "Pay me more, or I'll shift focus to xAI". Now that he has a longer term contract with a trillion dollar bonus attached, that may change to "Buy xAI, or I'll shift focus to xAI," to extract another half trillion.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:23

So he can siphon off money? Most of his other ventures are in conflict with the interest of TSLA and its shareholders. People are still pouring $billions into it. regardless.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:23

Grok is and updated Eliza.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:24

Robotaxi and Robovan.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:25

The big tragedy will come when there's a fire in there and everyon is broiled alive. On the positive side, they are already underground.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:27

They are accomplices.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:28

In \*theory\*, yes. In reality they are all part of the scam.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:28

George was correct.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:29

Or make his "AI" company the recipient of some inflated contracts to siphon out money from TSLA.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:31

It's a ticking timebomb but none of us can see the timer.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:32

Instead of figurativesly redirecting resources?

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:35

\> Tesla seems to want you to believe .... The core part of their business is making people believe in things which are impractical, irrational and sometimes impossible. I'm waiting for Tesla's fans to put on fancy running shoes and jump on a comet to Mars.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:36

Their future relies on keeping the mythology alive along with the lies.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:36

The same reason it's that much higher than any other car company.

BringBackUsenet 2025-10-27 18:38

Don't forget the dancing neoprene "robots".

pzerr 2025-10-27 19:12

They are fully getting sued for exactly this from major institutional shareholders. Not only is Tesla named but they are piercing the corporate veil and suing the directors and Musk directly. Piercing the corporate veil is pretty rare. This is big news but both Tesla and the institutional investors want to keep this on the low down as it is a pretty big indication they are concerned about the stock price and optics. Essentially Musk said about 2 years ago if the board/investors do not give him that 46 billion in shares, he would start his own AI company. (This is included as evidence in the lawsuit showing intent). The 46 billion was denied and Musk then started his own AI company and just recently shut down Tesla AI. Not only are they getting sued for that, but part of it is 'resource' tunneling. Musk has been taking employees from Tesla (assume the best) and moving them into his companies. (Twitter, AI company, SpaceX). With that comes some fairly proprietary knowledge. To add to this, Musk just recently had Xai (His AI company) buy X (Twitter) for about 42 billion. Basically this was around the price he paid for Twitter and more or less was just numbers changing on some balance sheets in such a way as to not incur any capital gains/losses. While the capital gains thing is legitimate and the combining is legitimate as they are arms lengths private companies after all, what I suspect he will do soon is very sketchy. Musk within the next year or two will now suggest Tesla needs to buy an AI company and who has one? Musk. And not only will Tesla pay some 200 billion for this (shares and cash to be sure), Tesla will now be saddled with the way over valued and bad purchase of Twitter. BTW, that 200 billion that I mentioned is not something I made up. That number has been (unofficially) thrown out there. https://electrek.co/2025/04/10/cracks-are-forming-in-elon-musks-armor-of-lies/

Turbulent-Phone-8493 2025-10-27 19:42

If i was paying somebody a billion dollars i would expect a full time CEO

I_did_theMath 2025-10-27 20:06

Even if it tanks, Tesla is way too much for xAI to buy. And Elon owns a higher percentage of xAI than Tesla, so the obvious scam here is to do it the other way around and have Tesla buy xAI for way more than it's worth.

ExtraSmooth 2025-10-27 20:12

Well I guess he could have been more subtle

ExtraSmooth 2025-10-27 20:12

I mean, none of them are actually "AI" companies

ExtraSmooth 2025-10-27 20:13

I think you're confused

ExtraSmooth 2025-10-27 20:14

That's why they won't let you on the board

[deleted] 2025-10-27 20:19

Yeah, I was looking into that recently, it appears that the amount of r/D that Tesla does is paltry compared to the rest of the big Tech

bikesnotbombs 2025-10-27 20:22

ya i mean.. when I hear folks say 'AI' company, im generally assuming they are referring to companies that provide highly scaled or specialized LLMs. I can't imagine tesla is using LLMs for anything. they've been 'training' fsd for a decade, before the rise of such technology, and with the hallucinations and all that seems like a poor fit. They offer no 'AI' that a consumer can use or interact with. I think people claim tesla is AI cuz of the nEUrAl nETs for fsd, and cuz robots obviously need AI. for all we know tho, FSD could be being built with absolutely nothing resembling what we'd call AI, and could be as poorly coded as musks OG zip2 program

Unfair_Cicada 2025-10-27 20:24

I am thinking of how to market my snack vending machines as an AI company as well. The machine will Use it AI and help you decide which candies you should eat… 🤔

Fit-Alfalfa2169 2025-10-27 20:29

Whoever pays this guy to place a robot in their home deserves whatever happens - literally the last person on earth I would trust to place a humanoid robot inside my home…

ObservationalHumor 2025-10-27 20:47

Didn't you hear? Tesla gets the privilege of investing in his other AI company too! Of course this is after he and his buddies have got all the early equity, after he's grossly inflated the value in previous funding rounds and by merging with Twitter's corpse at a massive overvaluation too. Putting xAI in a public company would require public filings and likely confirm the fact that very few people are paying for its AI api and services at this point relative to OpenAI and Anthropic. Musk also pitched it to the earlier researchers as focused on general AI and humanity's benefit not making edgelord LLMs and Waifu interfaces for his social media company. His initial contention was actually he couldn't get the original talent onboard within the framework of Tesla as an established company. It's not just a bait and switch on Tesla's shareholders but also early employees of xAI who thought they would be doing more meaningful work instead of pursuing Musk's vendetta against Sam Altman on a day to day basis.

DudeGuy2024 2025-10-27 21:55

Don’t blame Grok for that shit, blame Elon for installing the program Fasc1sm_Rul3z.exe into Grok

Oxy_1993 2025-10-27 22:09

I had to take an Uber today for work and I ended up inside a Tesla. I swear, I thought I was inside a Disneyland ride with how bumpy it is! It’s so scary. It’s like being inside of a tin can. And nope. It is NOT an AI company! It is definitely a cheap and tacky car company that takes itself too seriously.

FrostingSeveral5842 2025-10-27 22:43

Tesla is a car company TSLA is a meme stock that has absolutely nothing to do with AI, tech, car sales, faux solar roofs, semis, robots etc. TSLA is a line go up company (for now)

pretti 2025-10-27 22:56

To perpetuate fraud, of course!

theb0tman 2025-10-27 22:57

Don’t try to make any sense of it, man. There isn’t any to be found.

Unplugthecar 2025-10-27 23:12

It’s a stock company.

Horror_Response_1991 2025-10-27 23:46

Anyone who owns Tesla stock is asking to be burned at this point.

tanbyte 2025-10-28 00:02

Conflict of interest

da6id 2025-10-28 02:01

Cathie Wood is approaching climax at the thought

DistributionLast5872 2025-10-28 05:20

What about the Martian pressurized Cybertrucks?

DhOnky730 2025-10-28 05:31

I’m still waiting for the solar roof to revolutionize the roofing and solar industries. When that happens, the stock is gonna go up, right?

Withnail2019 2025-10-28 05:54

A failed 'AI' company at that. Grok barely has any paid users I believe?

Xerxero 2025-10-28 17:56

So Tesla can buy products from XAi. The joke of course is that he siphoned AI resources and talent away from Tesla to create the new company.

Late-Following792 2025-10-28 18:27

Those are just glorified chatbots. Nothing usefull.

hilldog4lyfe 2025-10-28 20:18

I’ve followed this stock for a long time and my only conclusion is don’t touch it with a 10ft pole.

Ok-Bill3318 2025-10-28 21:34

Because sometimes Elon talks shit

[deleted] 2025-10-28 23:46

Yes, but they don't care. They let Elon ruin the company for short term gains.

[deleted] 2025-10-28 23:51

xAI is reportedly burning $2B every month, and their one and only product is a racist Twitter-bot. No wonder Elon wants the Tesla shareholders to take the bag and pay him a ridiculous overprice.

TheBlackUnicorn 2025-10-29 00:31

I heard he owned two separate AI companies. He owns xAI and X.

Urban_Retoxx 2025-10-29 00:40

These here solar tiles? Revolutionize? Not exactly... Elon Musk, Tesla, and the Solar Roof Tile Fraud – Mansion Engineer https://share.google/3HRHofr6boTUR4kS8

Turbulent-Phone-8493 2025-10-29 01:27

xAI bought X/twitter

Turbulent-Phone-8493 2025-10-29 01:31

Eventually the dude needs to run out of money, right? he has several large factories and billions in fixed costs. if you lose 20% of revenue, you can easily run out of bucks.

DhOnky730 2025-10-29 04:12

Oh I know, that's why I was sarcastically saying I'm still waiting for this product that was supposed to be revolutionary, but instead amounts to corporate fraud

Urban_Retoxx 2025-10-29 07:40

Ah! I missed the sarcasm, sorry 'bout that!

soldieroscar 2025-10-29 10:57

By the way someone beat telsa to the humanoid robots race. Just like waymo beat them to the robotaxi race. Now what

DhOnky730 2025-10-29 15:09

If it were truly revolutionary, it would be everywhere by now. But he used that solar roof sham presentation to justify the merger and save Tesla.

theamazingstickman 2025-10-29 19:44

Musk siphoned the AI engineers from Tesla to XAi to " protect them" from OpenAI. He took employees from a publicly traded company he does not own and moved them to a privately held company he solely owns Now he is going to license XAi with a non-compete contract to Tesla and siphoned profits from both. He did the same thing with AI Chips. By far the most corrupt CEO in America and maybe, the world, is Elon Musk

Odd-Adagio7080 2025-10-30 00:51

It’s, um. . . because. . . Ya see. . . Aaaagggh! You wouldn’t understand. . . I’m smarter than you!

Belgarablue 2025-10-30 21:34

Well, in two, or three, or ten, years...Felon Musk Promises!

Odd-Wrangler2745 2025-11-01 18:35

🫣😅

Odd-Wrangler2745 2025-11-01 18:36

Because we all want a car for 2x the price and 1/2 the features as BYD, Xpeng and lately Huawei.

Odd-Wrangler2745 2025-11-01 18:38

Tldr: biggest bubble in history about to pop.

Odd-Wrangler2745 2025-11-01 18:40

But they are hedged and get out faster than the average sucker.  Still: the fallout will be significant.  Who buys TSLA now has no sense for anything close to value investing. P/E 312.0 right now

Odd-Wrangler2745 2025-11-01 18:41

Indeed.

MagicBradPresents 2026-02-17 12:46

It is wise to NOT put all your eggs in the same basket. 🧺

MagicBradPresents 2026-02-17 12:48

Remember when someone said there will be a computer in every home? Well now the computer will be a ROBOT 🤖 or multiple robots. Are you ready or will you opt out?

Turbulent-Phone-8493 2026-02-18 03:33

Wut

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