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Former Tesla president: Company is pivoting to autonomy 'because their core business is weak'

By just about every measure, Tesla’s first-quarter earnings report on Tuesday was dreary. The company missed estimates on the top and bottom lines. Revenue fell by 9% year over year, the worst decline since 2012. Auto sales dropped 13% from the same period in 2023. Free cash flow turned negative.

But CEO Elon Musk downplayed most of that and suggested investors focus their attention elsewhere.

Rather than dwell on quarterly financials or the massive restructuring announced last week, Musk reiterated his vision of Tesla as a company that’s building artificial intelligence software to turn existing cars into self-driving vehicles, dedicated robotaxis that will make money for their owners and a driverless transportation network.

This is the Tesla Musk is selling to Wall Street, and he’s telling anyone with doubts to stay away.

“If somebody doesn’t believe Tesla’s going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company,” Musk said on the earnings call. He added, “We will, and we are.”

Tesla shares soared 13% in extended trading Tuesday after the earnings report, despite the disappointing results. Some of the optimism was tied to Tesla’s announced plans to start production of new affordable electric vehicle models in “early 2025, if not late this year.”

The stock’s rally picked up steam during the earnings call as Musk veered to the future. He casually mentioned that the company’s robotaxi, which he has long said is coming, will be called the CyberCab. In a shareholder deck that Tesla published before the call, the company featured a “preview of ride-hailing in the Tesla app.”

Musk also talked up a driverless network that’s like Uber with Tesla autonomous vehicles.

“When the car is not moving,” Musk said, “there’s potential to actually run distributed inference,” through the hardware that’s in the cars.

Elon Musk needs to stop talking about robotaxis, says Requisite Capital's Bryn Talkington

Musk has been making these kinds of pronouncements for years.

In 2015, Musk told shareholders that Tesla cars would achieve “full autonomy” within three years. They didn’t. In 2016, Musk said a Tesla car would be able to make a cross-country drive without requiring any human intervention before the end of 2017. That hasn’t happened either.

And in 2019, on a call with institutional investors that would help him raise more than $2 billion, Musk said Tesla would have 1 million robotaxi-ready vehicles on the road in 2020, able to complete 100 hours of driving work per week each, making money for their owners.

The robotaxis would make Tesla a company worth $500 billion, he said at that time. Tesla’s market cap is around that mark now and even topped $1 trillion in 2021, but the company has never managed to deliver on its driverless promises.

NBC News reported recently that the company hasn’t even sought permits that would allow it to test and operate robotaxis in three states, including California and Nevada, where it employs thousands of people.

Separately, the California Department of Motor Vehicles has filed a legal complaint against Tesla, saying it engaged in false advertising and marketing concerning its driver assistance systems — Autopilot and Full Self-Driving (FSD) systems. Autopilot is the standard, and FSD costs $99 per month or $8,000 upfront. Both require human drivers at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at any time. Tesla is defending itself in court against the accusations.

‘More valuable than everything else’

On the earnings call, Musk said he believes FSD will soon be ready to expand geographically to China pending regulatory approval. He didn’t mention the California regulator’s lawsuit.

Musk said people who haven’t tried Tesla’s latest FSD updates “really don’t understand what’s going on.”

His bluster isn’t limited to cars.

At an AI Day in August 2021, Musk said Tesla would build a humanoid robot, now known as Optimus. The company didn’t have a hardware prototype to show at the time, so an actor dressed in a spandex bodysuit danced onstage in its place. In 2022, Tesla unveiled its hardware prototype of Optimus.

On Tuesday, Musk said Optimus is already capable of doing some unspecified factory tasks.

A mockup of Tesla Inc.’s planned humanoid robot Optimus on display during the Seoul Mobility Show in Goyang, South Korea, on Thursday, March 30, 2023. The motor show will continue through April 9. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

“We may be able to sell it externally by the end of next year,” he said. “Optimus will be more valuable than everything else combined because if you’ve got a sentient humanoid robot that is able to navigate reality and do tasks at request, there is no meaningful limit to the size of the economy.”

Whether all of these capital-intensive and far-out projects belong at Tesla is a question that many investors and analysts are asking.

Musk owns a 20.5% stake in Tesla, ​​more than 715 million shares, as of March 31, according to the company’s recent proxy filing. He’s used around 238.4 million of those shares as collateral to secure personal debt. In January, he began angling for even more control of Tesla.

“I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control,” he wrote in a post on X. “Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned.”

Musk created a new startup, xAI, to develop AI products to rival those from Microsoft-backed OpenAI. Before starting xAI, he was already serving as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and was technology chief at X, which he owns. He’s also the founder of brain computer interface company Neuralink and tunneling venture The Boring Co.

Alex Potter, an analyst at Piper Sandler, asked Musk on the earnings call if he’d “come up with any mechanism” to ensure he would have the requisite level of voting control at Tesla because, if not, “the core part of the thesis could be at risk.”

“No matter what, even if I got kidnapped by aliens tomorrow, Tesla will solve autonomy, maybe a little slower but it would solve autonomy for vehicles at least,” Musk said. “I don’t know if it would win with respect to Optimus, or with respect to future products, but there’s enough momentum for Tesla to solve autonomy, even if I disappeared, for vehicles.”

But he was quick to tell investors that the company needs him to achieve his loftiest goals.

“If we have a super sentient humanoid robot that can follow you indoors, and that you can’t escape, we’re talking Terminator-level risk yeah I’d be uncomfortable if there’s not some meaningful level of influence over how that is deployed,” he said.

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Tesla profits and margins might go lower even as volumes go higher, says shareholder Ross Gerber

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How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

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How TikTok’s rise sparked a short-form video race

TikTok’s grip on the short-form video market is tightening, and the world’s biggest tech platforms are racing to catch up.

Since launching globally in 2016, ByteDance-owned TikTok has amassed over 1.12 billion monthly active users worldwide, according to Backlinko. American users spend an average of 108 minutes per day on the app, according to Apptoptia.

TikTok’s success has reshaped the social media landscape, forcing competitors like Meta and Google to pivot their strategies around short-form video. But so far, experts say that none have matched TikTok’s algorithmic precision.

“It is the center of the internet for young people,” said Jasmine Enberg, vice president and principal analyst at Emarketer. “It’s where they go for entertainment, news, trends, even shopping. TikTok sets the tone for everyone else.”

Platforms like Meta‘s Instagram Reels and Google’s YouTube Shorts have expanded aggressively, launching new features, creator tools and even considering separate apps just to compete. Microsoft-owned LinkedIn, traditionally a professional networking site, is the latest to experiment with TikTok-style feeds. But with TikTok continuing to evolve, adding features like e-commerce integrations and longer videos, the question remains whether rivals can keep up.

“I’m scrolling every single day. I doom scroll all the time,” said TikTok content creator Alyssa McKay.

But there may a dark side to this growth.

As short-form content consumption soars, experts warn about shrinking attention spans and rising mental-health concerns, particularly among younger users. Researchers like Dr. Yann Poncin, associate professor at the Child Study Center at Yale University, point to disrupted sleep patterns and increased anxiety levels tied to endless scrolling habits.

“Infinite scrolling and short-form video are designed to capture your attention in short bursts,” Dr. Poncin said. “In the past, entertainment was about taking you on a journey through a show or story. Now, it’s about locking you in for just a few seconds, just enough to feed you the next thing the algorithm knows you’ll like.”

Despite sky-high engagement, monetizing short videos remains an uphill battle. Unlike long-form YouTube content, where ads can be inserted throughout, short clips offer limited space for advertisers. Creators, too, are feeling the squeeze.

“It’s never been easier to go viral,” said Enberg. “But it’s never been harder to turn that virality into a sustainable business.”

Last year, TikTok generated an estimated $23.6 billion in ad revenues, according to Oberlo, but even with this growth, many creators still make just a few dollars per million views. YouTube Shorts pays roughly four cents per 1,000 views, which is less than its long-form counterpart. Meanwhile, Instagram has leaned into brand partnerships and emerging tools like “Trial Reels,” which allow creators to experiment with content by initially sharing videos only with non-followers, giving them a low-risk way to test new formats or ideas before deciding whether to share with their full audience. But Meta told CNBC that monetizing Reels remains a work in progress.

While lawmakers scrutinize TikTok’s Chinese ownership and explore potential bans, competitors see a window of opportunity. Meta and YouTube are poised to capture up to 50% of reallocated ad dollars if TikTok faces restrictions in the U.S., according to eMarketer.

Watch the video to understand how TikTok’s rise sparked a short form video race.

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Elon Musk’s xAI Holdings in talks to raise $20 billion, Bloomberg News reports

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Elon Musk's xAI Holdings in talks to raise  billion, Bloomberg News reports

The X logo appears on a phone, and the xAI logo is displayed on a laptop in Krakow, Poland, on April 1, 2025. (Photo by Klaudia Radecka/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Nurphoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s xAI Holdings is in discussions with investors to raise about $20 billion, Bloomberg News reported Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The funding would value the company at over $120 billion, according to the report.

Musk was looking to assign “proper value” to xAI, sources told CNBC’s David Faber earlier this month. The remarks were made during a call with xAI investors, sources familiar with the matter told Faber. The Tesla CEO at that time didn’t explicitly mention any upcoming funding round, but the sources suggested xAI was preparing for a substantial capital raise in the near future.

The funding amount could be more than $20 billion as the exact figure had not been decided, the Bloomberg report added.

Artificial intelligence startup xAI didn’t immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment outside of U.S. business hours.

Faber Report: Elon Musk held call with current xAI investors, sources say

The AI firm last month acquired X in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and the social media platform at $33 billion.

“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said on X, announcing the deal. “This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach.”

Read the full Bloomberg story here.

— CNBC’s Samantha Subin contributed to this report.

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Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

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Alphabet jumps 3% as search, advertising units show resilient growth

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Alphabet‘s stock gained 3% Friday after signaling strong growth in its search and advertising businesses amid a competitive artificial intelligence environment and uncertain macro backdrop.

GOOGL‘s pace of GenAI product roll-out is accelerating with multiple encouraging signals,” wrote Morgan Stanley‘s Brian Nowak. “Macro uncertainty still exists but we remain [overweight] given GOOGL’s still strong relative position and improving pace of GenAI enabled product roll-out.”

The search giant posted earnings of $2.81 per share on $90.23 billion in revenues. That topped the $89.12 billion in sales and $2.01 in EPS expected by LSEG analysts. Revenues grew 12% year-over-year and ahead of the 10% anticipated by Wall Street.

Net income rose 46% to $34.54 billion, or $2.81 per share. That’s up from $23.66 billion, or $1.89 per share, in the year-ago period. Alphabet said the figure included $8 billion in unrealized gains on its nonmarketable equity securities connected to its investment in a private company.

Adjusted earnings, excluding that gain, were $2.27 per share, according to LSEG, and topped analyst expectations.

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Alphabet shares have pulled back about 16% this year as it battles volatility spurred by mounting trade war fears and worries that President Donald Trump‘s tariffs could crush the global economy. That would make it more difficult for Alphabet to potentially acquire infrastructure for data centers powering AI models as it faces off against competitors such as OpenAI and Anthropic to develop largely language models.

During Thursday’s call with investors, Alphabet suggested that it’s too soon to tally the total impact of tariffs. However, Google’s business chief Philipp Schindler said that ending the de minimis trade exemption in May, which created a loophole benefitting many Chinese e-commerce retailers, could create a “slight headwind” for the company’s ads business, specifically in the Asia-Pacific region. The loophole allows shipments under $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free.

Despite this backdrop, Alphabet showed steady growth in its advertising and search business, reporting $66.89 billion in revenues for its advertising unit. That reflected 8.5% growth from the year-ago period. The company reported $8.93 billion in advertising revenue for its YouTube business, shy of an $8.97 billion estimate from StreetAccount.

Alphabet’s “Search and other” unit rose 9.8% to $50.7 billion, up from $46.16 billion last year. The company said that its AI Overviews tool used in its Google search results page has accumulated 1.5 billion monthly users from a billion in October.

Bank of America analyst Justin Post said that Wall Street is underestimating the upside potential and “monetization ramp” from this tool and cloud demand fueled by AI.

“The strong 1Q search performance, along with constructive comments on Gemini [large language model] performance and [AI Overviews] adoption could help alleviate some investor concerns on AI competition,” Post wrote in a note.

WATCH: Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital’s Chris Ballard

Gemini delivering well for Google, says Check Capital's Chris Ballard

CNBC’s Jennifer Elias contributed to this report.

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