Elon Musk & Tim Cook Issue the Same Ominous Warning to the World

Earlier this week, Apple made waves in the tech industry with some significant price increases to several of its products. Unfortunately, it sounds like those price hikes could be just the beginning, not just for Apple but for the entire tech industry.

Over the past several days, both Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook have each shared the same ominous warning about what they see as an unprecedented concern in the tech industry. And it sounds like the issue is more wide-reaching than just Apple.

Tim Cook Issues a Warning

Earlier this month, Tim Cook issued a bit of a warning ahead of what turned out to be some significant price hikes. Cook said that the price increases were "unavoidable" as a result of a growing shortage of memory and storage chips.

Cook explained with AI companies buying up all the storage to use for their purposes, there is simply less supply of memory and storage chips for consumer products, which leads to price increases.

According to Cook, this type of price increase is rather unprecedented in the industry, as it's something that he hasn't seen in decades.

"This is a hundred-year flood," Cook told The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview. "I've never seen anything like it in any area in over 40 years."

"Unfortunately, price increases are unavoidable," he said. "We're doing our best to mitigate the huge increases that are being passed to us, and we've been trying to shield our customers from the increases, but the situation has become unsustainable."

Elon Musk Agrees

While those comments from Cook might have felt like hyperbolic and perhaps even an excuse for the price hikes, Cook is not the only person sounding the alarm as he was joined by the wealthiest person in the world.

In a post on X this week, the world's first trillionaire, Elon Musk, agreed with Cook's assessment, offering the same warning to the world.

"Biggest price jump in anything I've ever seen too," Musk wrote in a post on X. "The production shortfall relative to demand is insane. MUCH higher production is needed."

Musk also shared a Wall Street Journal article titled "The Data-Center Boom Is Sparking a Third Wave of Inflation," which warned that the world's AI push is forcing price increases on everything from smartphones to electricity.

So while Cook's warning was geared more toward Apple pricing specifically, Musk echoing the warning indicates that this is something that will impact far more people than just Apple customers.

This story was originally published by Men's Journal on Jun 28, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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This story was originally published June 27, 2026 at 6:57 PM.