Chinese AI startup DeepSeek: Elon Musk has finally spoken out about the rising Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, but rather than offering praise, he has expressed strong skepticism about its rapid success and transparency. While many industry leaders have applauded DeepSeek’s achievements, Musk remains unconvinced, questioning the legitimacy of its claims and the true extent of its hardware resources.
After an unusually long silence on the subject, Musk addressed DeepSeek’s emergence in the AI landscape. The company has been making waves for developing a high-performance AI model at a fraction of the cost of its competitors. However, instead of acknowledging its breakthrough, Musk openly mocked DeepSeek’s assertions. His response starkly contrasts with other tech leaders who have commended the startup’s progress.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, for instance, hailed DeepSeek’s accomplishment as proof that AI’s value lies in data rather than expensive computing power. Musk, however, dismissed this notion with a sarcastic “Lmao, no.” His blunt reaction suggests he finds the company’s claims dubious and sees hardware as an indispensable factor in AI development.
Musk’s skepticism extends beyond DeepSeek’s technology to its origins. When an online user jokingly suggested that DeepSeek’s AI model, R1, was leaked from a Chinese lab, Musk responded with a laughing emoji—an apparent jab referencing past controversies surrounding China’s involvement in global technological and scientific developments.
Allegations of Concealed GPU Resources
A major point of contention for Musk is DeepSeek’s reported use of GPUs. The company asserts that it trained its AI model using approximately 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs, a relatively modest number compared to the massive computational power employed by AI giants such as OpenAI and Anthropic. However, Musk and Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang suspect that the true figure is much higher.
Wang, speaking in an interview with CNBC, theorized that DeepSeek actually possesses around 50,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs but may be withholding this information due to US restrictions on the export of advanced chips to China. Musk backed Wang’s claim with a simple yet telling response: “Obviously.” This single word implies that he believes DeepSeek is not being forthright about the scale of its computational power, further fueling doubts about the company’s transparency.
Diverging Industry Opinions
While Musk remains doubtful, other prominent figures in the tech industry have taken a different stance. Benioff described DeepSeek’s progress as a “Deepgold” moment, symbolizing a major breakthrough in AI accessibility. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella argued that more affordable AI solutions could accelerate global adoption, while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted that DeepSeek had built an “impressive model” considering the cost constraints.
Despite these endorsements, Musk refuses to take DeepSeek’s success at face value. As the founder of xAI, which recently launched its own AI model, Grok AI, Musk’s views may be influenced by competition. Whether his skepticism is warranted or merely a reflection of industry rivalry remains an open question.
DeepSeek’s rise signals an important shift in the AI landscape, and as the debate unfolds, the true extent of its capabilities—and its transparency—will likely come under even greater scrutiny.
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