-I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long. There was a rather important meeting today.
“Not at all. This was arranged on short notice, so we’re the ones grateful that you made time for us. Will we be able to meet him?”
-Of course. He’s waiting for you. I’ll show you in.
After thirty minutes of waiting, his secretary came back for us.
Surprisingly, things were moving smoothly. I’d thought he’d throw salt at me and chase me out the moment he heard my name, but I suppose Mustin is fairly magnanimous when it comes to business.
“Um, Team Leader…”
As we got ready and rose from our seats, President Kim of Hoam Electronics hesitated.
“Is this really all right…?”
“What is?”
“The bundling—no, the supply contract, I mean. Mustin is a genius, yes, but he’s also a man of tremendous pride. I’m deeply worried he’ll be offended by our proposal and cancel even the contract he already signed…”
I soothed the anxious man.
“President Kim, right now the guy selling the pickaxes has the upper hand. Don’t worry.”
“…Pardon?”
“Let’s go.”
After finally arriving, sure enough, the scene that greeted me was exactly as I had expected.
“Welcome! My friend!”
Mustin, who was already acquainted with President Kim, welcomed him with open arms.
“How have you been?”
“Thanks to you, I’ve been well. Haha. And you, sir?”
“I haven’t had a single peaceful day, awake or asleep, worrying about semiconductors. If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve gone to Korea and eaten chicken too. This time, I was one step behind that sly Chairman Hwang.”
“Not at all. The partnership between Teslan and Hoam has always been solid. Starting next year, we’ll have more volume coming out of the newly established factory, so please don’t worry too much.”
“Oh, what a relief!”
“Haha.”
Dressed in jeans, he looked exactly as he did on TV.
A straightforward man without pretense, honest with his emotions. He made no attempt to hide his excitement as he warmly welcomed the Hoam Electronics team.
“Ah, today I have someone else to introduce to you. This is…”
“Mr. Lee? Sejun?”
“Oh my… You two know each other?”
“How could I not? A talented investor even Wall Street couldn’t keep up with. Good to meet you, Mr. Lee. This is our first time meeting in person, isn’t it?”
Good heavens. If anything, it should have been a bad connection between us, but this man really did have a big heart!
At his enthusiastic welcome, I also smiled brightly and answered.
“Yes, good to meet you. I’m Lee Se—”
But it took less than three seconds for it to become clear that it had all been an act.
He gripped my outstretched hand as if he were cracking a walnut, making no effort to hide his hostility.
“Ah…”
“Oh dear. I’m sorry. When I see someone I’m glad to meet, I have trouble controlling my excitement. Are you all right?”
“Haha… Yes, I’m fine. Thank you for such an enthusiastic welcome.”
“Rather than stand around like this, let’s sit down first. I’d been wanting to visit Korea anyway, so this is excellent timing.”
The semiconductor shortage really was serious. Otherwise, a man this unable to control his emotions would have thrown me out already.
And as I expected, the moment he sat down, he brought up the topic.
“Mr. Kim. I didn’t hear the details, but what is this about? Priority supply of semiconductors?”
“Yes. It’s a gift from our chairman. Starting next year, we’ve decided to give Teslan priority supply for 5% of the DRAM coming out of the newly established factory. And that’s only for the initial supply. The volume will continue to increase.”
“Thank you very much. I’m genuinely touched. But the reason…?”
“Let’s say it’s a gift for the partnership between our two companies.”
“Oh… A gift. A gift. Thank you very much. But President Kim, that amount of DRAM… In truth, it isn’t enough to quench our thirst. If you were to increase the volume, how much could you increase it by?”
President Kim cautiously glanced at me.
As planned, he had taken the bait.
“That hasn’t been discussed in exact terms yet, but how much do you need?”
“What is there to say? With HBM, the more, the better. As you know, AI data has accumulated to an enormous scale, but there’s no high-capacity memory that can keep up with GPU speeds. Because of that, every sector of our Teslan, from humanoids to rockets, is on emergency footing. If possible, I’d like to just sign an exclusive contract outright.”
He truly was a businessman to the bone.
Asking for quantities he didn’t even need meant he wanted to prevent his competitors from using them, didn’t it?
Once the atmosphere had heated up to the point we wanted, President Kim glanced at me again. Taking that as my signal, I opened my mouth.
“In that case, that’s excellent news. To think our semiconductors can be of great help to Teslan, a company leading the world’s technology. But CEO Mustin, may we make a proposal?”
“A proposal? What kind of proposal?”
“The ESS batteries you purchased last time. We were wondering if you might increase the scale of that contract. By about three or four times?”
In an instant, the meeting room froze cold.
The excitement on his face cooled so sharply it was almost icy.
“What did you just say? You want us to increase ESS deliveries?”
“Yes.”
“Last time, we signed a contract worth two billion dollars, and you want us to increase that by three or four times?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Lee, are you insane?”
As expected, he was the type who couldn’t hide his feelings well.
“What kind of lunacy is that! With the White House’s anti-environmental policies, government subsidies have been slashed as it is! Solar and wind power projects have all been pushed aside. And now you want us to buy more ESS, the storage devices for them? Where exactly are we supposed to use those?”
“I’m not saying you should build more. I’m saying you should reallocate existing volume.”
“What?”
“CEO Mustin. I understand that most of Teslan’s ESS batteries are supplied by Chinese companies such as CATL. But is there really a need for that? When it comes to LFP cell technology, we don’t lag behind anyone either.”
Mustin’s face hardened even more as he understood what I meant.
“So you’re saying you want us to give you the work that would have gone to Chinese companies?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And if I don’t agree, then the priority HBM supply never happened?”
“We won’t be able to offer preferential treatment. After all, we have many affiliates to feed.”
Mustin silently glared at me.
I took that as a good sign. The man I knew should have already leapt out of his seat by now.
The semiconductor supply shortage currently being reported in the media was not something to be taken lightly. Until now, AI technology had focused on how to train GPUs in more and more fields. But to think that would instead become a side effect…
What was needed now was a high-capacity system to process this vast data—in other words, high bandwidth memory, HBM. The problem was that there were only a handful of companies on Earth capable of producing it.
“President Kim, to be honest, I found it strange from the start. Why would an employee from Korea’s NPS show up at a corporate meeting? Tell me clearly. Is this the will of Hoam Electronics, or the will of the Korean government?”
President Kim gauged the mood, then said,
“If you don’t mind, shall we step out for a moment?”
When I gave a look, all the executives around us left, leaving only Mustin and me.
I was a little frightened. He was a man infamous for all sorts of eccentric behavior. What if he tried to harm me?
“Team Leader… let’s not do this.”
But, quite unexpectedly, he pleaded with me in a sorrowful voice.
“This isn’t a fair deal, is it? If we were talking semiconductors, it should end with semiconductors. Why is some unrelated product coming into it?”
“That’s why it’s preferential treatment. If you don’t want it, shall we go to Amazon or Google?”
For big tech companies, ESS was destiny.
To feed AI, they needed enormous amounts of electricity and energy. But they also couldn’t use carbon-based energy, so ESS, which could store eco-friendly energy, was practically unavoidable.
Because of that, though it had yet to truly stand out, many big tech companies were competitively pouring effort into ESS development.
“Listen, do you think going to them will change anything? Because of the White House’s anti-environmental policies, every company is hesitating to invest in alternative energy right now. Even so, because we’re at least on this level, we’re making this much investment and signing this level of supply contract.”
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. This has gone on longer than intended. Then I’ll be—”
“I’m not finished! Do you understand how extremely unfair it is for this conversation to have even come up? If I report this to the U.S. authorities, what do you think they’ll do to Korea?!”
I answered calmly.
“I think they’ll be pleased.”
“W-what?”
“The authorities have already begun regulations, haven’t they? Was the tariff three thousand percent, or four thousand percent… The scale was so large that I don’t even remember clearly. In any case, with regulations now covering not only direct imports from China but even indirect exports, do you think the White House would dislike reducing reliance on Chinese components?”
The regulations had already begun.
The Donald administration was extremely wary of the growing dependence on Chinese energy components, and accordingly had slapped on absurd tariffs amounting to several thousand percent.
Of course, these were not tariffs imposed directly on China, but on indirect exports—in other words, tariffs slapped onto relatively easy targets in Southeast Asia. Even so, the message the U.S. authorities were sending to their domestic companies was clear.
Don’t depend on China for parts.
“Haa…”
As he sighed, I spoke in a softened tone.
“CEO Mustin. Of course, I understand. Korean-made components are currently more expensive, even if Chinese companies shoulder the tariffs. But we won’t leave unit prices as they are forever. Korean component and finished-goods suppliers are currently establishing overseas factories and doing everything they can to bring costs down.”
“…”
“The effects will appear within a few years. But until then, we need buyers who can provide stable demand.”
“Do you really think you can beat Chinese companies by doing that? Even the White House can’t do anything about their low-price offensive.”
“If you spin a globe, you’ll find plenty of countries with labor costs cheaper than China. Companies are already producing visible results, so I ask you. Until we catch up to Chinese unit prices, please use our components just a little. For America’s sake.”
Even I, who had been composed at first, grew impatient.
This was as far as I could go. Now I had no choice but to trust in the scarcity of semiconductors.
Mustin sighed for a long while, and a fairly long, heavy silence passed between us.
“That proposal…”
At last, he opened his mouth.