# Elon Musk says Tesla should be spending on AI 'as fast as we can' > Source: > Published: 2026-07-23 11:00:08+00:00 Elon Musk says Tesla should [spend even more on AI](https://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-wall-street-tech-selloff-ai-token-goldman-sachs-2026-6) — even if some money ends up being wasted. The EV giant's capital expenditure soared 142% year-over-year to $5.8 billion in the second quarter as Musk's [AI spending spree](https://www.businessinsider.com/the-bill-for-teslas-ai-expansion-just-keeps-getting-bigger-2026-4) ramped up. Speaking on an analyst call after [Tesla's earnings](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-q2-earnings-updates-tsla-stock-elon-musk-spacex-2026-7) on Thursday, Musk said that he had asked executives to keep accelerating the company's spending. "We should be spending on capex as fast as we can spend — as fast as we can without it being too wasteful. So we're not trying to aim for some extremely high-efficiency capital spend because that would slow things down," Musk said. Tesla is investing aggressively in new production lines and factories for its [Cybercab robotaxi and Optimus](https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-cybercab-optimus-production-agonizingly-slow-robotaxi-robot-2026-1) humanoid robot. The automaker recorded a negative free cash flow of $1.1 billion in the second quarter, its first shortfall [since 2024](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-earnings-wall-street-ev-elon-musk-disappointing-hybrids-robotaxis-2024-4), and Tesla's shares fell in [premarket trading](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-q2-earnings-updates-tsla-stock-elon-musk-spacex-2026-7) as the company's profits missed earnings expectations. Executives told investors that AI spending will continue to grow, with Tesla's total capex spending expected to surpass $25 billion this year. CFO Vaibhav Taneja said on the earnings call that Tesla was aiming to secure debt facilities to give it the capacity to borrow up to $30 billion. He predicted spending would ramp up in the next 2-3 years as the company builds a new solar panel factory, installs more AI compute, and breaks ground on a massive ['Terafab' semiconductor fab](https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-terafab-chip-factory-launch-elon-musk-biggest-challenge-2026-3) that Tesla is building with SpaceX. It comes as other tech giants burn through cash to keep up in the escalating AI race. Google recorded a negative free cash flow of [nearly $6 billion](https://www.businessinsider.com/google-q2-2026-earnings-historic-negative-cash-flow-ai-costs-2026-7) in its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday and raised its capex predictions for the full year to as much as $205 billion. Musk's comments on Tesla's spending efficiency come a year after he launched an assault on [wasteful government spending](https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-department-of-government-efficiency) with DOGE, and the world's richest man has continued to criticize government spending as prone to abuse and waste. Musk told investors on Wednesday that Tesla's capex efficiency was "off-scale good" because the EV giant was investing in lots of productive assets like factories and infrastructure at the same time. "I think probably this is the fastest industrial scale-up since World War II in America," Musk said.