Dear Reader,
This is Dylan Jovine with Behind the Markets.
Happy Friday.
Today is Friday, April 17th.
Most of our time here at Behind the Markets is spent finding opportunities nobody else is talking about.
That's how you get ahead of the crowd.
And I have one today that I think is one of the best I've seen in a very long time.
Nobody Thinks of Tesla This Way
When most people think of Tesla, they think of electric vehicles.
When they think of Elon Musk, they think of rockets and SpaceX.
Nobody thinks of Tesla as a semiconductor company.
But get this.
Tesla is actually one of the top seven clients of TSMC — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.
Taiwan Semi is the company that everybody uses to make their chips.
Firms like Nvidia, AMD, and Tesla design chips but don't manufacture them.
They send the designs to Taiwan Semiconductor, which actually builds them.
Tesla has millions of its own chips inside its products right now.
Full self-driving is built on Tesla's own chip architecture.
What Elon Said That Stopped Me Cold
Elon Musk recently said this, and I want you to read it carefully.
"We expect to build chips at higher volumes — ultimately than all other AI chips combined. Read that sentence again, as I'm not kidding.”
Elon Musk is already one of the top seven clients of the largest chip manufacturer in the world.
And he is planning to go much, much further.
The AI5 Chip
Tesla's new chip is called the AI5.
Tesla shares jumped 8% recently when Musk revealed they had made real progress on it.
He posted on X that they had finished taping out the chip — which means the design is complete and it is ready to be manufactured.
This is not a concept.
This is happening right now.
Why This Matters More Than People Realize
The AI5 chip is central to everything Tesla is building toward.
Full self-driving robo taxis.
Optimus humanoid robots.
Two thirds of that trillion dollar compensation package Elon received from Tesla's board is tied to those two things.
And both of those things depend entirely on the AI5 semiconductor.
Most investors have no idea.
Anyway, that's all I have for you today.
Have a wonderful weekend.
I'll see you Monday.
“The Buck Stops Here,”
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Written by Dylan Jovine