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Elon Musk agrees with what Apple CEO Tim Cook said has shocked him; says: Biggest
TOI Tech Desk / TIMESOFINDIA.COM / Jun 30, 2026, 10:04 IST
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Apple CEO Tim Cook recently described the global memory shortage as a “hundred-year flood” and said he had “never seen anything like it in over 40 years.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk agreed, posting on social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), that the surge represents the “biggest price jump in anything I’ve ever seen.” The AI boom has strained global memory chip production, as hyperscalers and data center buildouts consume vast supply. This has driven costs sharply higher, squeezing margins across consumer electronics and forcing companies to raise prices.Apple took the rare step of hiking prices on MacBooks, iMacs, iPads, HomePods, and Apple TV boxes, with increases of up to $300. Microsoft followed suit, announcing Xbox consoles would cost $100–$150 more beginning August 1. Apple raised Mac prices by roughly 15% to 20% and iPad prices by 15% to 25% on Thursday, according to the Journal, which first reported Cook’s comments in an exclusive interview last week. The base MacBook Air jumped $200 to $1,299. The MacBook Pro climbed $300 to $1,999. The iPad Air rose $150 to $749, and the iPad Pro went up $200 to $1,199. The entry MacBook Neo saw a smaller $100 bump to $699.The culprit is memory. DRAM, the chips that run active apps, and NAND, the storage that holds your photos and files, have both quadrupled in price over the past year. The reason is the AI arms race. Hyperscalers like Google, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon are pouring hundreds of billions into data centers, and chipmakers are steering production toward the high-bandwidth memory those servers demand. That leaves less for consumer devices, and what’s left costs far more.
Why Apple has increased prices of iPad and MacBooks
In a statement shared with TOI, Apple said the company had resisted passing on higher costs for as long as possible.“The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge. The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly,” the company said.Apple added that it had “shielded customers” from the increases so far but had now reached a point where it needed to raise prices on products including iPads and Macs.
Elon Musk calls for higher production
Musk warned: “The production shortfall relative to demand is insane. MUCH higher production is needed.” He has previously said Tesla could be limited by chip supply, noting that “memory is an even bigger limiter than AI logic.” To address the issue, Musk announced the Tesla Terafab joint project with SpaceX and Intel, a multibillion-dollar initiative to build a chip facility combining logic, memory, and advanced packaging under one roof.Get the latest technology news and updates. Download the TOI App.
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