Tesla’s plan to slash silicon carbide use sends some chipmakers’ shares down
Model Y cars are pictured during the opening ceremony of the new Tesla Gigafactory for electric cars in Gruenheide, Germany, March 22, 2022.
Patrick Pleu | Pool | via Reuters
Shares in some chipmakers dipped on Thursday after electric vehicle maker Tesla said it plans to greatly reduce the use of silicon carbide transistors in its next-generation vehicle powertrains.
At Tesla’s 2023 Investor Day presentation on Wednesday, which largely focused on efficiency and controlling costs, powertrain engineering leader Colin Campbell took the stage to show how the company plans to reduce the cost of their cars’ powertrains, while maintaining high performance and energy efficiency.
Campbell revealed that, “In our next powertrain, the silicon carbide transistors that I mentioned, that are key component[s] but expensive, we figured out a way to use 75% less without compromising the performance or the efficiency of the car.”
Shares of ON Semiconductor and ST Microelectronics were each down more than 4%, while Wolfspeed dropped more than 9% and MP Materials more than 12% in mid-day trading, as investors worried that Tesla’s moves would be a harbinger for the automotive industry.
Campbell did not say when the company’s next-generation powertrain would be ready for high-volume production and use in the company’s vehicles, nor did he specify how much it currently spends on these transistors. Executives at the event did not reveal any firm details about the “next gen” Tesla, which some analysts refer to as the Model 2.
Chips made with silicon carbide transistors are widely used in electric vehicles. Generally, they withstand more heat, have a longer life and are more energy-efficient than semiconductors made with silicon power transistors, according to the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.
Bank of America analysts called Tesla’s claims “notable but premature.”
However, the analysts acknowledged, “If true, this technological advancement could be a major risk for the SiC materials industry (WOLF, COHR, Rohm) and devices (ON and European peers STMicro, Infineon – covered by Didier Scemama).”
They added the possibility that “cheaper [silicon carbide chips] could drive up EV adoption globally so what vendors lose on content could be partially offset by greater EV volumes.”
New Street Research analysts agreed generally, and wrote in a note on Thursday that the announcement from Tesla is actually a good thing for chipmakers as they expect demand to remain high throughout and beyond the EV industry.
They wrote of Tesla’s announcement: “The inverter of the new drivetrain will use a hybrid architecture,” that mixes silicon and silicon carbide transistors, with both types of transistors working together to handle peak loads in a Tesla vehicle, primarily during the vehicle’s acceleration. “This hybrid architecture is for the new platform only, i.e. a low-cost, small, lower-performance car, and will not be adopted for existing models (S, X, 3, Y), or the Cybertruck.”
New Street does not expect a lower-priced, next generation Tesla vehicle to “ramp in volumes before 2025 or 2026.”
Wells Fargo analysts are maintaining an overweight rating on shares of both Wolfspeed and OnSemi with a price target for Wolfspeed of $110 and a price target for OnSemi of $95.
Citing Yole Group in a note on Thursday, Wells Fargo analysts said in the near term the silicon carbide chip supply chain will remain tight due to strong demand from automakers across the board. Every growing EV maker will seek to scale up while controlling costs but in the near term, they will be more concerned about securing a supply of silicon carbide chips for their new models, many of which are set to launch this year and next, they said.
— Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, May 13, 2025.
Hamad I Mohammed | Reuters
Tesla’s shares have finally turned positive for the year.
After a dismal first quarter, which was the worst for the stock in any period since 2022, and a brutal start to April, following President Donald Trump’s announcement of sweeping new tariffs, Wall Street has again rallied around the electric vehicle maker.
The stock rose 3.6% on Monday to $410.26, topping its closing price of 2024 by over $6. It’s up 85% since bottoming for the year at $221.86 on April 4. A new filing revealed that CEO Elon Musk purchased about $1 billion worth of shares in the company through his family foundation.
It’s the second straight year Tesla has bounced back after a down first quarter. Last year, the shares fell 29% in the first three months before ending up 63% for 2024.
In recent weeks, analysts have praised the EV maker’s proposed pay plan for Musk, which could amount to a $1 trillion windfall for the world’s richest person over the next decade. The company has also gotten a boost from its new MegaBlocks battery energy storage systems that Tesla ships preassembled to businesses looking to lower their power costs or make greater use of electricity from renewable resources.
Even with the rebound, Tesla is the second-worst performer this year among tech’s megacaps, ahead of only Apple, which is down about 5% in 2025. Tesla is still in the midst of a multi-quarter sales slump due to an aging lineup of EVs and increased competition from lower-cost competitors in China, namely BYD.
Tesla has seen a consumer backlash, in part because of Musk’s political activities, including spending nearly $300 million to propel President Trump back to the White House and his work with the Trump administration to slash the federal workforce.
Tesla leadership has been working to shift investors’ attention to other topics such as robotaxis and humanoid robots.
However, the company has yet to deliver vehicles that are safe to use without a human onboard and ready to take control if needed. And while Musk is touting Tesla’s Optimus robots, which he says will be able to do everything from factory work to babysitting, a product is still a long way from hitting the market.
WATCH: Musk’s share purchase
Google CEO Sundar Pichai gestures to the crowd during Google’s annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California on May 20, 2025.
Camille Cohen | Afp | Getty Images
Alphabet has joined the $3 trillion club.
Shares of the search giant jumped more than 4% on Monday, pushing the company into territory occupied only by Nvidia, Microsoft and Apple.
The stock got a big lift in early September from an antitrust ruling by a judge, whose penalties came in lighter than shareholders feared. The U.S. Department of Justice wanted Google to be forced to divest its Chrome browser, and last year a district court ruled that the company held an illegal monopoly in search and related advertising.
But Judge Amit Mehta decided against the most severe consequences proposed by the DOJ, which sent shares soaring to a record. After the big rally, President Donald Trump congratulated the company and called it “a very good day.”
Alphabet shares are now up more than 30% this year, compared to the 15% gain for the Nasdaq.
The $3 trillion milestone comes roughly 20 years after Google’s IPO and a little more than 10 years after the creation of Alphabet as a holding company, with Google its prime subsidiary.
CEO Sundar Pichai was named CEO of Alphabet in 2019, replacing co-founder Larry Page. Pichai’s latest challenge has been the surge of new competition due to the rise of artificial intelligence, which the company has had to manage through while also fending off an aggressive set of regulators in the U.S. and Europe.
The rise of Perplexity and OpenAI ended up helping Google land the recent favorable antitrust ruling. The company’s hopes of becoming a major AI player largely ride with Gemini, Google’s flagship suite of AI models.
Technology
Bessent: TikTok deal ‘framework’ reached with China, Trump and Xi will finalize it Friday
Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images
The U.S. and China have reached a ‘framework’ deal for social media platform TikTok, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Monday.
“It’s between two private parties, but the commercial terms have been agreed upon,” he said from U.S.-China talks in Madrid.
Both President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet Friday to discuss the terms. Trump also said in a Truth Social post Monday that a deal was reached “on a ‘certain’ company that young people in our Country very much wanted to save.”
Bessent indicated that the framework could pivot the platform to U.S.-controlled ownership.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The comments came during the latest round of trade discussions between the U.S. and China. Relations have soured between the two countries in recent months from Trump’s tariffs and other trade restrictions.
At the same time, TikTok parent company ByteDance faces a Sept. 17 deadline to divest the platform’s U.S. business or face being shut down in the country.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Monday that the deadline may need to be pushed back to get the deal signed, but there won’t be ongoing extensions.
Congress passed a law last year prohibiting app store operators like Apple and Google from distributing TikTok in the U.S. due to its “foreign adversary-controlled application” status.
But Trump postponed the shutdown in January, signing an executive order in January that gave ByteDance 75 more days to make a deal. Further extensions came by way of executive orders in April and in June.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in July that TikTok would shutter for Americans if China doesn’t give the U.S. more autonomy over the popular short-form video app.
As for who controls the platform, Trump told Fox News in June that he had a group of “very wealthy people” ready to buy the app and could reveal their identities in two weeks. The reveal never came.
He has previously said he’d be open to Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison or Tesla CEO Elon Musk buying TikTok in the U.S. Artificial intelligence startup Perplexity has submitted a bid for an acquisition, as has businessman Frank McCourt’s Project Liberty internet advocacy group, CNBC reported in January.
Trump told CNBC in an interview last year that he believed the platform was a national security threat, although the White House started a TikTok account in August.
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