Big Tech Also Controls AI Costs…Tesla Caps Employee AI Usage at 300,000 Won Per Week

Big Tech Also Controls AI Costs…Tesla Caps Employee AI Usage at 300,000 Won Per Week

Even giant tech companies, which once encouraged their engineers to use artificial intelligence (AI), are gradually shifting towards controlling related costs.

Tesla, the electric vehicle company led by CEO Elon Musk, announced a policy last month to limit employees' AI usage to a maximum of $200 (approximately 300,000 won) per week, according to a report by U.S. IT media outlet The Information, which obtained an internal memo on the 2nd (local time).

This cap will take effect from the 6th, and separate approval will be required to exceed the limit.

However, the trial AI models of xAI, a subsidiary of Musk's 'sister company' SpaceX, are excluded from the restrictions.

This move is interpreted as an attempt to address a situation where Tesla's software (SW) engineers' AI model usage costs have been reaching thousands of dollars or more per week for several months.

Last year, Tesla launched an in-house platform called 'Bottle Rocket' to encourage employees to use AI models such as OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and Cursor.

Recently, employees were encouraged to try out new models like 'Composer' from Cursor, a coding app developer slated for acquisition by SpaceX, and xAI's 'Grok'.

However, internal sources reported that employees preferred Anthropic's 'Claude' over these models.

Tesla also seems to have been concerned about the potential leakage of internal data due to external AI usage.

Tesla has blocked intranet access to unauthorized external models and implemented security policies to prevent confidential information leakage. On top of this, it has now introduced an AI spending cap.

Silicon Valley's giant tech companies, after initially fostering a competition in AI usage, often referred to as 'token maxing', are now hastily limiting usage as they face increasing costs.

Meta had once stated that AI usage would be reflected in performance bonuses, but effectively withdrew this, and other major companies also appear to be shifting towards increasing efficiency.