Elon Musk isn’t just talking about AI chips. The Tesla CEO is now asking engineers who are interested in a job to email the company, and he’s personally running twice-weekly design meetings.
In a post on X on Saturday night, Musk called for job applicants for Tesla’s AI chip engineering team. He asked candidates to send an email with three bullet points proving their “exceptional ability” to Tesla.
“We are particularly interested in applying cutting-edge AI to chip design,” he said.
Musk said in the post that the company aims to “bring a new AI chip design to volume production every 12 months.”
“We expect to build chips at higher volumes ultimately than all other AI chips combined,” he added.
The current chip in Tesla cars is known as AI4, and the company is “close to taping out AI5” while work is starting on AI6, Musk said.
“These chips will profoundly change the world in positive ways, saving millions of lives due to safer driving and providing advanced medical care to all people via Optimus,” Musk added. Optimus is Tesla’s humanoid robot project.
Musk has been ramping up Tesla’s chip ambitions. In July, the company signed a $16.5 billion deal with Samsung to manufacture Tesla’s A16 chip at its new plant in Texas.
Tesla has posted Palo Alto, California-based engineering roles for its AI hardware team, including openings for physical design engineers and signal and power integrity engineers.
The physical design engineer job requires candidates with 10 or more years of experience in designing and building integrated circuits, also known as chips. The role involves designing, constructing, and integrating the building blocks of Tesla’s AI chips. The listing said the position pays about $152,000 to $264,000 a year, plus cash and stock awards and benefits.
The signal and power integrity engineer role helps develop next-generation AI chips and systems for Tesla vehicles and Optimus robots. The position is focused on testing and validating the chips. The listing said the job pays about $120,000 to $318,000 a year, with cash and stock awards and benefits.
Musk is ‘deeply involved’ in chip design and meetings
Musk said in the post on X on Saturday that he is “deeply involved in the chip design” and meets with the engineering team “every Tuesday and Saturday.”
“The Saturday meetings are short-term and will no longer be needed in a few months when AI5 is taped out,” he added.
Musk has long been known for inserting himself into the day-to-day work at his companies. Musk said in July he would personally oversee Samsung’s new chipmaking plant in Texas. The plant, located in Taylor, Texas, is expected to open in 2026.
“This is a critical point, as I will walk the line personally to accelerate the pace of progress,” Musk said on X, adding that the fab is “conveniently located not far from my house.”
During Tesla’s Model 3 ramp-up in 2018, Musk said he slept on the company’s factory floor. After taking over Twitter — now X — in 2023, he renamed the company and rehauled its entire structure.
Read the full article here
