Elon Musk has voiced skepticism about DeepSeek, a rising Chinese AI company that has been making waves with its latest AI advancements. While DeepSeek’s AI chatbot has been hailed as an impressive innovation and compared to leading American AI models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Musk remains unconvinced. His recent comments on X (formerly Twitter) suggest that he doubts both the hype and legitimacy surrounding the company’s achievements. In one of his social media posts, Musk even mocked DeepSeek AI, reinforcing his dismissive stance on its capabilities.
DeepSeek has drawn attention for reportedly achieving high-level AI performance with significantly lower investments compared to its American counterparts. This has generated excitement in the AI community, with some seeing it as a potential challenger to the dominance of established players like OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic. The company’s rapid rise has also caused shifts in the market—Nvidia, a crucial supplier of GPUs for AI development, saw its market cap drop significantly after DeepSeek’s latest product announcement. This suggests that investors and analysts are taking DeepSeek’s advancements seriously, even as Musk remains skeptical.
Musk’s most direct criticism of DeepSeek came when Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff praised the company’s work and suggested that data and metadata are the key drivers of AI value. Musk responded with a blunt “Lmao, no,” signaling his disbelief in DeepSeek’s supposed breakthroughs. His dismissive reaction not only questioned the company’s achievements but also challenged the broader narrative that DeepSeek is a game-changer in the AI race.
Beyond his doubts about the AI model itself, Musk has also taken issue with DeepSeek’s hardware claims. The company publicly states that it operates around 10,000 Nvidia A100 GPUs, but Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang speculated that DeepSeek might actually be running on around 50,000 Nvidia Hopper GPUs. Given that the US has imposed strict export controls on advanced AI chips to China, this claim, if true, suggests that DeepSeek may have acquired these GPUs through undisclosed channels. Musk’s response to Wang’s speculation was a simple “Obviously,” implying that he believes DeepSeek is hiding its true hardware capacity and possibly circumventing US restrictions.
Adding a playful but pointed jab at DeepSeek’s Chinese origins, Musk responded with a laughing emoji when a user joked that DeepSeek’s AI, called R1, was “leaked from a lab in China.” This remark alludes to past controversies surrounding China’s role in global technology and AI development, including concerns about intellectual property, data security, and government influence. While the comment was made in jest, it reflects the growing geopolitical tensions between the US and China in the AI sector.
Despite DeepSeek’s increasing recognition and market impact, Musk’s responses indicate that he does not see the company as a serious challenger to US tech giants like OpenAI. His skepticism may stem from his deep involvement in the AI industry—as the founder of xAI and a key figure in Tesla and SpaceX’s AI-driven projects, Musk has long been vocal about both the potential and the dangers of artificial intelligence. His dismissal of DeepSeek suggests that he views it as overhyped or possibly misleading about its actual capabilities.
This episode also highlights the escalating AI rivalry between the US and China. While American companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic continue to dominate global AI research, Chinese firms such as DeepSeek, Baidu, and Huawei are making significant strides in AI development. With ongoing restrictions on chip exports, research collaboration, and data access, the competition between these nations in the AI space is only set to intensify further.
