A Waymo autonomous self-driving Jaguar electric vehicle sits parked at an EVgo charging station in Los Angeles, California, on May 15, 2024.
Patrick T. Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
Uber announced Friday it is expanding its partnership with Alphabet’s Waymo to offer robotaxi rides in Austin, Texas, and Atlanta beginning in early 2025. Shares of Uber jumped 5% on the news while Alphabet rose about 1%.
Uber riders in those cities can be matched with a driverless Waymo car for some trips, according to the companies. The rides will only be available through Uber’s app, unlike in San Francisco and Los Angeles where riders book through the Waymo app. A Waymo spokesperson said it had no plans to partner with Uber in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The expansion comes as Uber faces investor pressure to step up its autonomous vehicle strategy, especially ahead of Tesla‘s planned robotaxi event slated for Oct. 10. Shares of Uber have fallen 9% since the Tesla event was announced and are off 17% from their 52-week highs.
It may also slow Waymo encroachment into Uber’s market share. An analysis from Bernstein estimated that, as of May 2024, Waymo’s 50,000 weekly paid rides made up approximately 2% of ride-sharing usage in San Francisco. Since then, Waymo has doubled its paid robotaxi trips to 100,000 a week, the company announced.
“We’re thrilled to build on our successful partnership with Waymo, which has already powered fully autonomous trips for tens of thousands of riders in Phoenix,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in a release.
Uber’s initial agreement with Waymo in Phoenix also included autonomous Uber Eats deliveries in the city. The expansion into Austin and Atlanta won’t include Uber Eats at first, according to the Waymo spokesperson, but they’re exploring that possibility for the future.
Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said, “We’ve been delighted at the positive feedback from our Waymo One riders to date, and we can’t wait to bring the comfort, convenience, and safety of the Waymo Driver to these cities in partnership with Uber.”
The expansion into two more cities is another step in Uber’s advancement into the robotaxi space, after struggling to get a foothold and selling off its own self-driving division in 2020, now relying on partnerships with companies including Waymo, GM‘s Cruise and the SoftBank-backed U.K. startup Wayve to gain ground.
Uber shares dipped in August after the company announced a multiyear partnership with Cruise to offer autonomous rides through its app next year. Wells Fargo analyst Ken Gawrelski cited Cruise’s previous safety challenges as a part of the investor skepticism, along with now-fulfilled hopes for a partnership with Waymo instead.
Waymo has rapidly made strides in the self-driving race. It currently offers robotaxi services to the public in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix. It has logged more than 22 million miles through June of this year, and last week, it released a report that argued its vehicles are safer than human drivers. It began testing driverless cars on Bay Area freeways with Google employees in August.
Some analysts were more hopeful for a potential Uber and Waymo expansion into San Francisco. But Atlanta and Austin, where Waymo has already begun testing, may still help sentiment.
— CNBC’s Laura Batchelor and Lora Kolodny contributed to this article.
Musk, the world’s richest person, started going after Navarro over the weekend, posting on X that a “PhD in econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,” a reference to Navarro’s degree. Whatever subtlety remained at the beginning of the week has since vanished.
On Tuesday, Musk wrote that “Navarro is truly a moron,” noting that his comments about Tesla being a “car assembler,” as much are “demonstrably false.” Musk called Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks,” before later apologizing to bricks. Musk also called Navarro “dangerously dumb.”
Musk’s attacks on Navarro represent the most public spat between members of President Trump’s inner circle since the term began in January, and show that the steep tariffs announced last week on more than 180 countries and territories don’t have universal approval in the administration.
When asked about the feud in a briefing on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “Look, these are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs.”
“Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue,” she said.
For Musk, whose younger brother Kimbal — a restaurant owner, entrepreneur and Tesla board member — has joined in on the action, the name-calling appears to be tied to business conditions.
Tesla’s stock is down 22% in the past four trading sessions and 45% for the year. Tesla has lost more tha $585 billion in value since the calendar turned, equaling tens of billions of dollars in paper losses for Musk, who is also CEO of SpaceX and the owner of xAI and social network X.
Even before President Trump detailed his plan for widespread tariffs, he’d already placed a 25% tariff on vehicles not assembled in the U.S. Many analysts said Tesla could withstand those tariffs better than competitors because its vehicles sold in the U.S. are assembled domestically.
But the company’s production costs are poised to increase because of the tariffs on materials and parts from foreign suppliers. Canada and Mexico are among the leading sources of U.S. steel imports, and Canada is the nation’s largest supplier of aluminum, while China and Mexico are home to major suppliers of printed circuit boards to the automotive industry.
At a recent an event hosted by right-wing Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, Musk said, “Both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and North America.”
Musk, whose view on trade relations with Europe stands in stark contrast to the policies implemented by the president, has a vested interest in the region. Tesla has a large car factory outside of Berlin, and the European Commission previously turned to SpaceX for launches.
Even before the tariffs, Tesla’s business was faltering. Last week, the company reported a 13% year-over-year decline in first-quarter deliveries, missing analysts’ estimates. That report that landed days after Tesla’s stock price wrapped up its worst quarter since 2022.
Musk, who spent roughly $290 billion to help return Trump to the White House, is now leading the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, which has slashed costs, eliminated regulations and cut tens of thousands of federal jobs. In the first quarter, Tesla was hit with waves of protests, boycotts and some criminal activity that targeted vehicles and facilities in response to Musk’s political rhetoric and his work in the White House.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, laughs as he attends a session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23, 2020.
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
Apple‘s 23% plunge over the past four trading sessions has again turned Microsoft into the world’s most valuable public company.
As of Tuesday’s close, Microsoft is worth $2.64 trillion, while Apple’s market cap stands at $2.59 trillion.
While the market broadly is getting hammered by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plan, Apple is getting hit the hardest among tech’s megacap companies due to the iPhone maker’s reliance on China.
The Nasdaq is down 13% over the past four trading days, as President Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on imports from more than 100 countries has sparked fears of a recession brought on by rising prices. UBS analysts on Monday predicted that the price of the iPhone 16 Pro Max could jump as much as $350 in the U.S.
Both Apple and Microsoft, along with chipmaker Nvidia, were previously valued at upward of $3 trillion before the recent sell-off.
In January, Microsoft issued disappointing revenue guidance. Nevertheless, last week, as Jefferies analysts reduced their price targets on many software stocks, they wrote Microsoft was among the “companies who we view as more insulated” from tariff uncertainty.
Technology stocks bounced Tuesday after three rocky trading sessions, spurred by rising optimism that President Donald Trump could potentially negotiate tariff deals with world leaders.
The sector is coming off a wild trading session after speculation that the White House could potentially delay tariffs fueled volatile swings. Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Amazon and Nvidia finished higher, while Apple, Microsoft and Tesla posted losses.
Trump’s wide-sweeping tariff plans have sparked violent turbulence over the last three trading sessions. Trading volume on Monday hit its highest in nearly two decades. Technology stocks gyrated after the Nasdaq Composite posted its worst week in five years and the Magnificent Seven group lost $1.8 trillion in market value over two trading sessions.
Chipmakers were excluded from the recent tariffs, but have come under pressure on worries that higher duties could diminish demand for products they are used in and slow the economy. The sector is also expected to see tariffs further down the road.
Elsewhere, Broadcom surged 9% after announcing a $10 billion share buyback plan through the end of the year. Marvell Technology also bounced more than 9% after agreeing to sell its auto ethernet business for $2.5 billion in cash to Infineon Technologies.