Elon Musk Says China Can Out-Scale the World, but Advanced Memory ‘Will Be Harder to Solve’ — Micron, SK Hynix, SanDisk Drop After-Hours

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (NASDAQ:SPCX) CEO Elon Musk said Monday that China’s ability to scale a product once it masters it often exceeds the rest of the world combined, but that advanced memory may be harder to crack, while memory stocks extended their slide in after-hours trading.

On Monday, the memory selloff erased a combined $108 billion from the market values of Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU), SK Hynix Inc. (NASDAQ:SKHY) and SanDisk Corp. (NASDAQ:SNDK), after ChangXin Memory Technologies reported chip-design advances that could heighten competition and relieve AI-driven supply constraints.

Batteries, Solar and SpaceX

Musk said on X that China’s manufacturing scale has been evident in lithium batteries and solar, while SpaceX is a rare exception, delivering mass to orbit roughly an order of magnitude greater than the rest of the world.

“When China figures out how to manufacture a product, their ability to scale is often greater than the rest of the world combined.”

He was responding to Milk Road’s AI analyst Melvin who questioned the memory selloff because announcing a chip architecture is not the same as producing it at scale.

When China figures out how to manufacture a product, their ability to scale is often greater than the rest of the world combined. We saw this with lithium batteries and solar, for example.

SpaceX is a rare counter-example, where its mass to orbit is roughly an order of…

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2026

Sees Harder Road in Advanced Memory

Musk also noted that random access memory was a low-margin commodity only about three years ago, and that the low-power memory used in phones and laptops follows a common standard that China “seems to be solving fast.”

Newer designs, such as high-bandwidth memory and stacking memory chips directly on top of processors while keeping them cool, “will be harder to solve,” he added.

CXMT Closes in

TrendForce data put CXMT’s share of global DRAM revenue at 9.5% in the second quarter, up from 7.6% in the first, compared with Samsung Electronics at 39.4%, 24.9% for SK Hynix Inc. (NASDAQ:SKHY) and 23.3% for Micron Technology Inc. (NASDAQ:MU).

Price Action: Micron shares fell 3.88% on Monday to close at $989.04 and lost 1.40% in extended trading to $975.20. SK Hynix’s Nasdaq-listed ADR closed 4.02% lower at $162.23 and fell 1.17% in after-hours to $160.34. SanDisk, which closed 5.97% lower in the regular trading session, fell 2.24% in extended trading.

In Seoul on Tuesday, SK Hynix was down 7.60% at KRW 1.48 million ($1,122). Samsung was down 5.59% at KRW 236,500 ($176.79).

Benzinga Edge rankings indicate Micron’s stock has a Momentum score in the 99th percentile and a Growth score in the 93rd percentile.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Photo Courtesy: Frederic Legrand – COMEO on Shutterstock.com