Tesla stock dropped early on Monday after CEO Elon Musk joined those concerned about humanity's ability to control AI.
"Dario is right," tweeted Musk on Saturday, reposting a tweet from Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
Amodei recently wrote a lengthy essay calling for a slowdown of AI development to help mitigate AI risks, including cyberattacks, bioterrorism, and economic. His writing followed warnings from a 27-year-old former Anthropic employee warning that AI could be an existential risk to humanity.
AI fears are impacting AI stocks. Tesla shares were down 1.7% at $365.44 in premarket trading, while S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were down 0.8% and 0.2%, respectively. Nasdaq Composite futures were down 1.8%. SpaceX shares were off 2%. Nvidia and Alphabet shares were down 2.9% and 0.3%, respectively.
What all of those stocks have in common, of course, is AI. SpaceX and Alphabet operate AI data centers, with SpaceX looking to put them in space soon. Those data centers run thousands of Nvidia GPU processors. And Tesla uses AI to create "physical AI" applications such as robo-taxis and robots.
For Tesla, AI has become much more important to the stock than electric vehicles. Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco, for instance, values Tesla's self-driving and robotics opportunities at roughly $320 per share. He values the car business at closer to $45 a share.
Those numbers are why Tesla stock is down, despite news that the new Tesla Roadster will be unveiled on Oct. 1.
AI matters more than EVs for the entire market. "The obvious concern here is whether Dario and his compatriots have killed the AI semis/hardware trade," wrote Melius Research analyst Ben Reitzes on Sunday.
"Stepping back, we think it is important to not be hysterical here and be rational," he added. Politics, regulation, and backlash have always been significant risks, and regulation was inevitable. Higher spending on cybersecurity and the development of open-source AI models-which adds to overall compute demand-are likely outcomes of the current debate.
The debate isn't going away any time soon, so investors will have to brace for some added volatility in Tesla and other AI stocks.