Elon Musk Says Nvidia's Next-Gen Rubin Chips Won't Be Operational At Scale Soon As Tesla Works On In-House AI Hardware

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk says that Nvidia Corp's (NASDAQ:NVDA) new chipset would take some time before it can be scaled.

Nvidia's Rubin Chip

On Monday, influencer Sawyer Merritt shared a video that detailed Nvidia's new Vera Rubin chips' capabilities, showcased at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026.

The new architecture has no fans or cables and promises up to five times more powerful performance than the preceding Blackwell chip and each rack would contain 72 Rubin chips. The chips, according to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, were two GPUs connected together.

NEWS: Nvidia has released a new video of its next-generation Rubin chips, which are 5X more powerful than their predecessor, Blackwell. The new Rubin chips are already in production.

CEO Jensen Huang: "This is a Rubin pod. 1,152 GPUs and 16 racks. Each rack has 72 Rubins." pic.twitter.com/5NDkKmj64y

— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) January 5, 2026

Nvidia Would Need 9 Months, Says Elon Musk

The SpaceX CEO shared his thoughts in a response to Merritt's post. He shared that despite the impressive technology, it would take "another 9 months" before the technology becomes "operational at scale" and the software can function smoothly.

It will take another 9 months or so before the hardware is operational at scale and the software works well

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 6, 2026

Elon Musk On Nvidia's Self-Driving Exploits

Nvidia also showcased its new self-driving technology, Alpamayo, at the event, which touted a vision-language-action approach and was hailed by Huang as the "ChatGPT moment" for self-driving.

Musk shared that the technology's distribution would be "super hard" to solve for Nvidia. His comments were echoed by Tesla's AI Chief, Ashok Elluswamy, too. However, the Tesla CEO ultimately wished Nvidia the best and hoped that it succeeded in developing self-driving car tech.

Tesla’s In-House Chips

Meanwhile, Tesla is also working on developing AI chips. Musk had said that the developments would enable Tesla to produce more chipsets than any of its competitors. He had also announced a major hiring drive at the company to help in its chip-building efforts.

Tesla scores well on the Momentum and Quality metrics, but offers poor Value. It also has a favorable price trend in the Medium and Long term. For more such insights, sign up for Benzinga Edge Stock Rankings today!

Price Action: TSLA declined 0.14% to $451.05 during the after-hours trading session, according to Benzinga Pro data.

Check out more of Benzinga's Future Of Mobility coverage by following this link.

Read Next:

• Tesla Rival Lucid Unveils Prototype Robotaxi In Collaboration With Uber Amid Strong Q4 Deliveries