John Carmack, a video game developer who worked on Commander Keen, Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Quake, and many more, recently stated on X (formerly known as Twitter) that not many companies could achieve the same feats as TSMC. Naturally, X CEO Elon Musk had something to say about that—as he does with most things.
For the uninitiated, TSMC is a Taiwanese contract manufacturing and design company head that is quickly dominating the tech market. It has become the largest independent semiconductor foundry in the world and the central government of Taiwan is its largest shareholder.
Carmack asked his followers if it would be any less impossible for a big tech company to make its own bespoke chips, which would be a much smarter undertaking than competing against the general purpose companies. In a one-tweet reply, Elon Musk on X simply stated: “Tesla could do it, but I sure hope we don’t have to.”
Now, Elon Musk isn’t proposing that Tesla become the new TSMC—not by a long shot. Instead, he refers to Carmack’s claim that competing against TSMC would be a fruitless effort, especially since it would be an equally as demanding accomplishment for a company to build its own chip factory, thereby producing processors specifically for its own market without a third-party interference.
Tesla presently relies on Samsung for the bespoke chips used in its line of car’s Autopilot feature. Theoretically, Tesla could build its own factory to mass produce these chips, given that all of the latest processors in Telsa cars are designed in-house. The majority of the assembly happens within Tesla grounds and only the manufacturing of the chips happens externally.
Musk’s company is worth a whopping $544.06 billion, so it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to suggest that Tesla is entirely capable of building its own factory and operating entirely on its own two feet. But Musk mentioned how he “hopes” they never have to resort to that. Why would he be so against such a worthwhile investment? Well, no one in their right mind would want to spend billions of dollars on the materials, staff members, and land necessary to make all that possible.
However, as TSMC continues to rise the ranks, Musk might soon have to take matters into his own hands. If that happens, he would have to open up that wallet.
