Elon Musk Shrugs Off Nvidia’s Alpamayo Hype, Says Tesla Is Already There — Warns Toughest Problem Remains Unsolved

• Musk said solving rare “long tail” driving scenarios remains the hardest challenge for autonomous carmakers.
• Nvidia unveiled its Alpamayo AI models and tools aimed at reasoning-based autonomous vehicle development.
• Tesla has expanded real-world testing of Full Self-Driving, including driverless robotaxi tests in Austin.

Tesla, Inc. CEO Elon Musk reacted to Nvidia’s unveiling of its Alpamayo autonomous driving models, saying the approach reflects what his EV company is already doing while underscoring the difficulty of rare edge cases.

In a post on X, Musk said, “Well, that’s just exactly what Tesla is doing.” He added that Nvidia will find it is “easy to get to 99% and then super hard to solve the long tail of the distribution,” referring to complex driving scenarios that autonomous systems struggle to handle.

Tesla’s stock fell 0.2% in after-hours trading on Monday after ending the regular session up 3.1% to hit $451.67.

Nvidia Targets ‘Long Tail’ With Alpamayo AI

Nvidia earlier announced the Alpamayo family of open AI models, simulation tools and datasets aimed at accelerating reasoning-based autonomous vehicle development. The company said autonomous systems must safely operate across a wide range of conditions, with rare and complex scenarios, often described as the “long tail,” remaining among the toughest challenges.

Nvidia said Alpamayo introduces chain-of-thought, vision-language action models to reason step-by-step through unfamiliar situations. CEO Jensen Huang said the models would allow autonomous systems to understand, reason, and act in real-world environments, describing the launch as a turning point for physical AI.

Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Progress 

Musk’s comments come as Tesla continues to expand testing of its Full Self-Driving system by testing fully self-driving robotaxis in Austin with no one in the driver’s seat.

Separately, Tesla’s FSD system received a positive assessment from the Korea Expressway Corporation following a real-world autonomous highway driving test conducted on Dec. 15, 2025. The test covered highways and city areas across South Korea and evaluated all four FSD driving modes, according to a report by Teslarati.

The report said FSD performed well on highways and inner-city roads, describing highway performance as “excellent.” In urban environments, testers said FSD exceeded the level of general human drivers in most situations, with exceptions including unprotected left turns and work zone intersections. The report also noted instances where FSD appeared to drive in accordance with traffic flow rather than strict traffic rules.

Analyst Highlights 2026 As Key Tesla Year

Last week, Dan Ives, managing director at Wedbush Securities, said he views 2026 as a pivotal year for Tesla as the company advances its autonomous vehicle technology.

Ives said autonomous technology is a key growth driver for Tesla and described 2026 as potentially “the most important year in its history for Musk.” Ives also said Tesla’s self-driving capabilities could add significant value to the company’s overall valuation and predicted Tesla could capture 80% of the autonomous vehicle market in the coming years. 

How Did Stocktwits Users React?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for Tesla was ‘extremely bearish’ amid ‘high’ message volume.

One user said Nvidia’s move helps explain why automakers did not license Tesla’s Full Self-Driving system, adding that earlier claims about the uniqueness of Tesla’s vision-only approach and large licensing potential faded as Nvidia developed open-sourced, similar autonomous driving technology.

Another user expects “panic selling” to start tomorrow.

Tesla’s stock has risen 10% over the past 12 months.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

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