Lee, the longest business trip on the 22nd after going all out in management
A series of big tech CEO meetings such as Google and MS
Review mid- to long-term strategy with accompanying management
“Future Vision to Overcome Crisis”
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong met with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the final schedule of his 22-day overseas business trip, the longest since he took the lead in management in 2014. It is the first time Chairman Lee has met with CEO Musk separately. It is expected that the cooperation between Samsung and Tesla for automotive semiconductors and displays will become one step closer. Chairman Lee met with CEOs of global companies along with Samsung’s key executives to check Samsung’s future business.
According to Samsung on the 14th, Chairman Lee met with key executives of Tesla, including CEO Musk, on the 10th (local time) at Samsung Electronics’ North American Semiconductor Research Center in Silicon Valley, California, USA. Chairman Lee and CEO Musk have been together at a gathering of various global businessmen, such as the global social gathering ‘Sun Valley Conference’, but this is the first time the two have met separately. On this day, Chairman Lee met with jeans and a gray hoodie, and CEO Musk wore a collarless T-shirt and jacket.
Chairman Lee and Musk are known to have discussed ways to cooperate in future high-tech industries, including semiconductors for advanced vehicles. It is expected that this meeting will solidify the technological alliance between Samsung and Tesla.
Tesla is one of the major customers of Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor foundry (consignment production) business. It is known that it has been supplying FSD semiconductors since 2019, starting with 14-nano ‘fully autonomous driving (FSD) semiconductors’. Tesla electric vehicles are equipped with many Samsung memory semiconductors. The two companies are also conducting exchanges for next-generation technology development, such as joint development of FSD semiconductors.
The meeting was attended by Tesla Vice President Khan Budiraj and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Drew Baglino. At Samsung Electronics, key executives of the DS division, such as Gyeonggi-hyeon, head of Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor (DS) division (president), Choi Si-young, head of the foundry business division (president), and Han Jin-man, vice president of DS Division America (DSA), and Samsung Display President Choi Joo-seon were together.
As CEO Joo-seon Choi attended the meeting, the possibility of cooperation between Tesla and Samsung Display for automotive displays is also raised. Samsung Display supplies organic light emitting diodes (OLED) for vehicles to Hyundai Motor Company, BMW, and Ferrari, but Tesla is supplied with vehicle displays from LG Display.
Automotive system semiconductors are one of Samsung’s future flagship businesses. Last month, Samsung Electronics won an order for Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) chips from Mobileye, a fabless (semiconductor design) company specializing in self-driving car chips. Previously, it is known that TSMC, a competitor of Samsung Electronics, has won orders.
Chairman Lee is said to have met more than one CEO of a global company every day until he left for the United States on the 20th of last month during President Yoon Seok-yeol’s visit to the United States and returned home on the morning of the 12th. Chairman Lee appointed around 20 people, including CEOs of information technology (IT) companies such as Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, as well as CEOs of major global pharmaceutical companies such as Johnson & Johnson, BMS, Biogen, and Organon. met.
An official from the business world said, “This is probably the first time Chairman Lee has personally met so many CEOs in a row.”
In particular, key executives attended the series of meetings to check Samsung’s mid- to long-term strategy. Chairman Lee met with the global CEO, according to the schedule, DS division executives such as President Kye Hyun-hyun and President Si-young Choi, Tae-moon Roh, head of the mobile experience (MX) business division, Jeon Jeon, CTO of the device experience (DX) division, John Lim, president of Samsung Biologics, and Go Samsung Bioepis CEO Han Seung and others accompanied him.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.