After more than a week of silence, Elon Musk has finally spoken out about DeepSeek, the Chinese AI startup gaining attention for its low-cost, high-performance AI model. Instead of praising the company, Musk has mocked its claims and raised doubts about its rapid success, suggesting that DeepSeek isn’t being completely open about its hardware resources.
Musk Questions DeepSeek’s Success
While other tech leaders have celebrated DeepSeek’s achievement, Musk remains sceptical. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff praised the startup’s AI breakthrough, saying it proves that AI’s true value lies in data, not expensive hardware. Musk quickly shot back with a dismissive “Lmao, no.”
Musk also took aim at DeepSeek’s Chinese origins. When a user joked that the startup’s AI model, R1, was “leaked from a lab in China,” Musk responded with a laughing emoji. This appeared to reference past controversies involving China and the spread of Covid-19.
Accusations of Hidden GPU Power
One of Musk’s main criticisms focuses on DeepSeek’s GPU usage. The company claims to have trained its model using around 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs, which is relatively modest compared to the resources used by companies like OpenAI or Anthropic. However, Musk and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang believe that DeepSeek’s actual GPU count is much higher.
Wang suggested in a CNBC interview that DeepSeek may be using around 50,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs but cannot openly admit it due to US export restrictions on advanced chips. Musk agreed with Wang, responding with an “Obviously” to imply that DeepSeek isn’t fully transparent about its hardware resources.
Musk’s Scepticism vs. Industry Praise
Musk’s attitude contrasts with the views of other industry leaders. Benioff referred to DeepSeek’s success as a “Deepgold” moment, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said cheaper AI would drive global adoption, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman called DeepSeek’s model impressive for its price.
But Musk, who also runs his own AI company, xAI, seems unwilling to accept DeepSeek’s achievements without question. Whether his doubts are justified or driven by competitive rivalry remains unclear.
