Elon Musk has instituted a weekly spending limit of $200 (£150) for Tesla employees on artificial intelligence, a move to control escalating costs as companies seek to rein in runaway bills.
Tesla staff have been informed that their use of AI will be restricted starting Monday.
This cap does not apply to Musk's own AI system, Grok, which has underperformed against competitors such as Anthropic's Claude, ChatGPT, and Google's Gemini.
Many large corporations had previously encouraged employees to use AI as much as possible in the hope of boosting productivity.
Musk stated earlier this year that AI would make the "output" of every Tesla Motors (TSLA) employee "incredibly high."
However, the push for AI adoption has led to soaring expenses, as the cost of using these systems increases with demand. There are also concerns that employees are wastefully applying AI to trivial tasks simply to demonstrate their use of the technology.
Several companies are now moving to limit employee usage. Uber, which had told staff to use AI extensively, recently imposed a monthly limit of $1,500. Meta, Walmart, and Coinbase have also indicated they will introduce spending caps.
Restricting expenditures can force employees to reserve AI for critical tasks or incentivize them to use more affordable AI systems.
These limitations mark a shift away from the "tokenmaxxing" trend, which measured employee performance by how many tokens they consumed.
The corporate pullback on AI spending is heightening market fears of a potential stock market crash. Massive investments by major labs in AI infrastructure had helped drive markets to new highs, but these investments were predicated on the rapid adoption of the technology.
Earlier this week, responding to a post on X predicting a tech industry crash, Musk wrote, "Even with rapid economic growth, there are always brief downturns. However, the productivity gains from AI and robotics are so immense that the macro trend is firmly upward overall."
Musk's own AI company, xAI (owned by SpaceX), has struggled to keep pace with rival chatbots, particularly in programming tasks where Claude and ChatGPT are widely used. The billionaire has stated the system needs to be "fundamentally rebuilt."
SpaceX recently agreed to acquire the AI programming startup Cursor for $60 billion. The company has its own AI system, Composer, which Musk has encouraged Tesla Motors (TSLA) employees to utilize.
Musk is determined to establish Tesla Motors (TSLA) as a leader in AI through its self-driving technology and the company's Optimus robot. However, while pushing to leverage this technology, Tesla is facing increasingly fierce competition.
This week, Musk announced that Tesla has begun production of the Optimus robot at its factory in Texas.
Tesla reported a 25% increase in quarterly deliveries this week, aided by a rebound in the European market. The company had faced difficulties in Europe last year following a boycott related to Musk's support for Donald Trump.
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