"Why So Aggressive?"...Musk Waves Korean Flags as He Singles Out Korea

Tesla Korea Job Drive... "Join Tesla"
Focus on Korea's Semiconductor Edge Amid In-House Fab Plans

Tesla Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk has drawn attention by explicitly mentioning Korea's semiconductor talent and personally promoting open hiring.

Reuters and Yonhap News

On the 16th (local time), CEO Musk quote-posted Tesla Korea's job listing on his X (formerly Twitter) account. He added several Taegeukgi (Korean flag) emojis to the post and wrote, "If you live in Korea and want to work in semiconductor design, manufacturing, or software, join Tesla."

Screenshot from Musk Elon's X (formerly Twitter)

Earlier, Tesla Korea posted a job opening for an "Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chip Design Engineer." The listing stated that the company is "looking for talent to join us in developing world-class, mass-production AI chips." In particular, it emphasized a selection policy focused on practical capabilities, requiring applicants to specify and submit "the three most difficult technical problems you have solved" in their application. The job posting was also shared through the "Tesla AI" account.

Musk Elon, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tesla. Yonhap News Agency

Musk has promoted hiring on social media several times in the past, but observers say it is unusual for him to directly single out semiconductor professionals in a specific country and encourage them to apply, as he did this time. The market interprets this as a move to secure Korean talent, which has strengths in memory and high-bandwidth memory (HBM), amid intensifying competition in AI hardware such as autonomous driving and humanoid robots.

Musk also clearly expressed his intention to strengthen the semiconductor supply chain during last month's earnings announcement. He said that "production by major suppliers such as Samsung Electronics, TSMC, and Micron may not be sufficient," and mentioned the need to build "tera fabs" (large-scale production facilities) to resolve bottlenecks that could occur within the next three to four years. He added that he is envisioning a U.S.-based production hub that would encompass logic, memory, and packaging.

The industry views Tesla as pursuing a strategy to secure not only semiconductor design capabilities but, in the long term, in-house manufacturing capabilities as well, and interprets this recruitment drive as an effort to secure talent that will lay the groundwork for that strategy.