The Motley Fool reports that Tesla has hired away to top-notch chip designers from Apple, and also that Elon Musk is being coy about whether Tesla wants to design its own chips.
The Motley Fool concludes that this is insane and chip-making is not Tesla’s business.
That seems about right to me, but one question is whether Tesla hired these chip designers as carrots or sticks.
The carrot approach is that, by having amazing chip designers on staff, Tesla can better work with NVIDIA and other manufacturers, guiding product development.
The stick approach is that Tesla might like to credibly pressure chip manufacturers, as a means to getting what it wants.
These approaches are not mutually exclusive.
David Silver 