Elon Musk’s Tesla has applied to test and eventually deploy its Robotaxi vehicles in Phoenix, Arizona, following in the footsteps of market leader Waymo.

Tesla has applied to conduct autonomous vehicle testing and operations, with and without human safety drivers on board, in Arizona, a spokesperson for the Arizona Department of Transportation told CNBC on Thursday. A decision on the application is expected at the end of July, and Tesla has “expressed interest in operating within the Phoenix Metro area,” the spokesperson said via email.

Reuters first reported Tesla’s Arizona ambitions.

The effort to expand to Arizona comes after Tesla in June began a pilot test of its robotaxis in Austin, Texas. Tesla’s Austin fleet includes Model Y SUVs that are equipped with the company’s newest, automated driving systems. Those vehicles are remotely supervised by employees in an undisclosed operations center, and they each include a human safety supervisor who rides with passengers.

The safety supervisor sits in the front passenger seat, accompanying riders, who are invited fans of Tesla. The supervisor can intervene should the Tesla Robotaxis get into trouble.

Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, opened up a driverless robotaxi service to the public in the Phoenix area in 2020, and now operates a fleet of 400 robotaxis there, the company told CNBC on Thursday.

Tesla, which was once seen as a self-driving pioneer, is now working to catch up to Waymo. The companies have distinct approaches to self-driving technology. Tesla claims its choice to mostly use cameras instead of expensive sensors like lidar will make its autonomous vehicles more economically viable.

The Musk company’s initial efforts in Austin have run into issues.

One invited passenger, who runs a Tesla-focused YouTube channel called Dirty Tesla, captured an incident on camera where his Robotaxi dinged a parked car outside of a restaurant.

Other incidents where Tesla Robotaxis violated rules of the road in Austin have also been captured on camera and circulated on social media, drawing regulatory scrutiny from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the federal vehicle safety agency.

Tesla is scheduled to hold a second-quarter earnings call on July 23, during which executives are expected to discuss the initial Robotaxi pilot.

Separately, Musk on Wednesday said on X that Tesla’s Robotaxi service will expand to the San Francisco Bay Area “probably in a month or two.”

California Public Utilities Commission and the California Department of Motor Vehicles told CNBC on Thursday that Tesla has not yet applied for approvals to begin driverless testing or commercial deployment of its Robotaxis in the state.

The California DMV sued Tesla in 2022 alleging that the company made false claims in marketing and advertising about its vehicles’ self-driving capabilities.

WATCH: We went to Texas for Tesla’s robotaxi launch. Here’s what we saw

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang will meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Thursday, CNBC’s Megan Cassella reported.

The meeting comes as Nvidia rose slightly on Thursday, becoming the first company to close a trading day with a market cap over $4 trillion, beating Apple and Microsoft to the symbolic milestone. Nvidia touched the mark briefly on Wednesday during trading.

Trump praised Nvidia stock in a social media post Thursday morning.

“NVIDIA IS UP 47% SINCE TRUMP TARIFFS. USA is taking in Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Tariffs,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “COUNTRY IS NOW ‘BACK.'”

An Nvidia representative declined to comment, and it was unclear what the meeting is about, but Nvidia has been grappling with export controls on its artificial intelligence chips implemented by the Trump administration in April for national security reasons.

At the time, the U.S. government told Nvidia that its previously-approved H20 processor — intended exclusively for the Chinese market — would require an export license. Huang previously told investors that requirement effectively cut off Nvidia’s sales to China with “no grace period.” The AI chipmaker said that it would miss $8 billion in planned orders for the chip in the company’s July quarter.

“The $50 billion China market is effectively closed to U.S. industry,” Huang told investors on an earnings call in May.

Nvidia also faces another potential restriction on AI chip exports after the Trump administration cancelled a planned rule by former President Joe Biden called the “AI diffusion rule.” The Trump administration promised newer, simpler restrictions later this year on which countries could receive Nvidia’s technology.

WATCH: Fundstrat’s Tom Lee: Nvidia being the most valuable company in the S&P makes a lot of sense

Ex-CNN anchor Don Lemon‘s lawsuit against tech billionaire Elon Musk and his social network X over the cancellation of their partnership can proceed to trial, a San Francisco judge ruled this week.

Musk’s team had tried to get the case moved to a Texas court and tried to convince the judge to strike the complaint altogether.

Attorneys for Musk and X didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In an order Tuesday, Judge Harold Kahn said Lemon and his attorneys plausibly alleged, among other claims, that X and Musk had committed “fraud by false promise” and that there was “an implied contract” between them.

Lemon filed the suit in August 2024 after X canceled a partnership with the broadcast journalist a few hours after he taped a tense interview with Musk, who owns X. The interview preceded a planned premiere of Lemon’s new show on Musk’s social network.

During the interview, Lemon pressed Musk on several contentious topics he had posted about or amplified on X. Musk had boosted the so-called “great replacement theory,” and other bigoted tropes and falsehoods, including posts that claimed there was a “Hispanic invasion” of immigrants to the U.S.

Lemon also pressed Musk about content moderation on X, and a reported surge in antisemitic content on the platform that occurred after Musk acquired it as Twitter in a $44 billion leveraged buyout in late 2022.

Musk made sweeping changes after taking over the site, firing huge numbers of personnel and reversing account bans for users who had been booted from the platform after posting hate speech or inciting violence.

Musk, who characterized himself as a free speech “absolutist” also restored the account of President Donald Trump. The site had permanently banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 following the attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

Lemon’s case against Musk and X Corp. is in San Francisco Superior Court. A date has not been set for the trial.

Musk and X have faced a litany of other lawsuits over non-payment to vendors and over failure to provide severance as promised to laid-off employees from Twitter.

Lemon was fired from CNN in 2023 following reports that he mistreated coworkers and made sexist remarks on-air, including about politician Nikki Haley. Lemon later apologized for the Haley comments.