Elon Musk and Tim Cook warn of growing memory chip shortage amid AI boom. Who will bear the brunt?

Tesla chief Elon Musk and Apple Inc Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook are now joining the ranks of tech industry leaders who are warning about a global crisis of deepening shortage of memory chips, a crisis that could ripple across industries and push up prices for consumers worldwide, Bloomberg reported on 16 February.

Since the beginning of 2026, several tech leaders have raised alarms over the shortage of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), considered to be the foundation of almost all technology, which will constrain production.