Elon Musk tells Tesla employees ‘hang onto your stock,’ urges vandals to ‘stop being psycho’
Tesla CEO Elon Musk watches as President Donald Trump talks to the media, outside the White House in Washington, D.C., March 11, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
During Elon Musk’s two months in Washington, D.C., Tesla shares have been on a precipitous decline, losing over 40% of their value.
Protests and campaigns against Tesla, Musk and his work in the Trump White House have erupted around the world. Criminal acts of vandalism and arson have also targeted some Tesla electric vehicles, showrooms and charging stations in a string of incidents in the U.S. and across Europe.
At an all-hands meeting with Tesla employees on Thursday evening, Musk addressed some of those issues, while trying to reassure employees that they were still in good hands, and to “hang onto your stock.” The shares rose 4% on Friday.
“It’s very difficult like for people in the stock market, especially those that look in the rearview mirror — which is most people — to imagine a future where suddenly a 10 million vehicle fleet has five to ten times the usefulness,” Musk said, touting his vision for autonomous vehicles that he’s long promised. “It’s so profound and there’s no comparison with anything in the past that it does not compute. But it will compute in the future.”
In recent months, Tesla’s new vehicle sales have fallen in Europe and in parts of the U.S. and China. The company is facing trade uncertainty after multiple executive orders from President Trump imposed new tariffs on goods and materials from Canada, Mexico and China, home to crucial Tesla suppliers. National car shopping site Edmunds said this week that Tesla owners are trading in their electric vehicles at record levels.
“If you read the news it feels like, you know, Armageddon,” Musk said on the livestream on Thursday. “It’s like, I can’t walk past the TV without seeing a Tesla on fire. Like what’s going on? Some people, it’s like listen, I understand if you don’t wanna buy our product, but you don’t have to burn it down. That’s a bit unreasonable.”
He followed up saying, “This is psycho, stop being psycho!”
Employees laughed with him.
Musk spent much of the meeting hyping Tesla’s technology, or the prospects of it.
“What’s the most exciting future that you could possibly imagine?” he asked rhetorically. He answered that it’s “a future of abundance for all,” where robotaxis, artificial intelligence and robots now in development at Tesla will bring about a future “where you could literally just have anything you want.”
Musk celebrated the best-seller status of the Tesla Model Y, and said the electric SUV would be the “best-selling car on Earth again this year” and “available worldwide.” He boasted that the Cybertruck, Tesla’s angular steel pickup truck, had become the top-selling fully electric pickup. Despite a massive Cybertruck recall announced earlier on Thursday, Musk also lauded the vehicle because it had attained a 5-star rating for crash safety.
He thanked Tesla employees for the refreshed version of the Model Y, saying the company’s supply chains on three continents proved a challenge in getting the car to market.
Musk boasted about the forthcoming Cybercab, a two-seater with no steering wheel or brakes, and EVs that will be upgraded to have robotaxi capabilities with a software update. It’s a promise he’s been making for years. In 2016, Musk told Tesla owners that their cars would be able to make a driverless cross-country trip by the end of 2018.
On Tesla’s last earnings call, Musk said a driverless ride-hail service is coming to Austin, Texas in June, using existing Tesla vehicles and a version of the company’s FSD or “Full Self-Driving” software, which currently requires a driver at the wheel ready to steer or brake at any time.
Musk said on Thursday that the Cybercab will be produced in Austin, as will the company’s humanoid robot, dubbed the Optimus. The Optimus is now being assembled at the company’s Fremont, California factory, he said, and Tesla aims to produce about 5,000 units this year.
In both the robotaxi and humanoid robotics markets, Tesla faces stiff competition.
Alphabet’s Waymo is scaling its driverless ride-hailing offering in more U.S. markets, recently launching in Austin. And Chinese EV makers, including Zeekr, plan to make their equivalents to Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD available as standard options.
Meanwhile, a number of humanoid robotics developers, including Apptronik, Boston Dynamics and Unitree, are working to bring their models to market. Boston Dynamics, in partnership with RAI Institute, released a new video this week showing their electric Atlas humanoid robot walking, running, crawling, and doing gymnastics.
Still, Musk says Tesla’s Optimus is “the most sophisticated humanoid robot on Earth,” even though it’s now “learning to walk and catch balls” and in most of its major demonstrations has been operated by people.
Tesla employees will be first to get access to the robots, he said, adding that one day they’ll function like Star Wars characters R2-D2 and C-3PO.
“We will offer Optimus robots first to Tesla employees,” Musk said. “There are some pluses and minuses to that — probably have a few bugs. But it’s gonna be very cool.”
WATCH: Musk has neglected Tesla
An Apple store in Walnut Creek, California, U.S., on April 30, 2025.
Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Apple is asking a court to pause a recent decision in its case against Epic Games and allow the iPhone maker to once again charge a commission on in-app transactions that link out for payment.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland found that Apple had violated her original court order from the Epic trial, originally decided in 2021, that forced Apple to make limited changes to its linking out policy under California law.
Judge Rogers’ new ruling is more expansive, ordering Apple to immediately stop imposing its commissions on purchases made for iPhone apps through web links inside its apps, among other changes.
Apple is now looking to get a stay on that order, as well as another one from the case that prevents it from restricting app developers from choosing the language or placement of those links, until the entire decision can be appealed. Apple says that required changes in their current form will cost the company “substantial sums.”
“This is the latest chapter in Epic’s largely unsuccessful effort to use competition law to change how Apple runs the App Store,” Apple said in the emergency motion for a stay. The motion cites a previous order in the case that found that new linking policies would cost Apple “hundreds of millions to billions” of dollars annually.
If Apple succeeds, it will allow the company to roll back changes that have already started to shift the economics of app development. Developers including Amazon and Spotify have been able to update their apps to avoid Apple’s commissions and direct customers to their own website for payment.
Prior to the ruling, Amazon’s Kindle app told users they could not purchase a book in the iPhone app. After a recent update, the app now shows an orange “Get Book” button that links to Amazon’s website.
Epic also plans to introduce new software to allow app and game developers to easily link to their websites to take payments.
“This forces Apple to compete,” Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said shortly after last month’s decision. “This is what we wanted all along.”
Apple said in the filing that “non-party developers are already seizing upon the Order to reduce consumer choice (and damage Apple’s business) by, among other things, impeding the use of” in-app purchases.
Rogers made a criminal referral in the case, saying that Apple misled the court and that a company vice president “outright lied” about when and why Apple decided to charge 27% for external payments. The real decision, the judge said, took place in meetings involving Apple CEO Tim Cook.
Wednesday’s filing from Apple doesn’t address Rogers’ accusations that the company misled the judge, but it does argue that the ruling was punitive. Apple’s lawyers also claimed that civil contempt sanctions can only coerce compliance with an existing order, not punish non-compliance.
Apple said earlier this week in a court filing it would appeal the contempt ruling.
“We’ve complied with the court’s order and we’re going to appeal,” Cook told investors on the company’s quarterly earnings call last week.
WATCH: Apple says it strongly disagrees with Epic Games decision
Rene Haas, CEO of chip tech provider Arm Holdings, holds a replica of a chip with his company’s logo on it, during an event in which Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim officially announces a $250 million deal with the company, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia March 5, 2025.
Hasnoor Hussain | Reuters
Arm shares dropped more than 8% in extended trading on Wednesday after the chip-design company issued weaker-than-expected guidance for the current quarter.
Here’s how the company did in the fiscal fourth quarter compared with LSEG consensus:
- Earnings per share: 55 cents, adjusted vs. 52 cents expected
- Revenue: $1.24 billion vs. $1.23 billion
While Arm topped estimates for the quarter ended March 31, Wall Street is looking ahead to the company’s forecast for the first quarter.
Arm said revenue will be between $1 billion and $1.1 billion. The middle of the range is below the $1.1 billion average analysts estimated, according to LSEG. Earnings per share will be between 30 cents and 38 cents, while analysts were expecting 42 cents.
SoftBank controls about 90% of Arm, and took the company public in 2023. It now has a market cap of over $130 billion as of Wednesday’s close.
Arm designs the fundamental architecture upon which many chips are built, and sells licenses for its designs to companies such as Qualcomm and Nvidia, charging royalty fees on each sale they make. The company claims 99% of premium smartphones are powered by Arm technology.
Royalty revenue in the quarter rose 18% from a year earlier to $607 million.
Net income fell 6% to $210 million, or 20 cents a share, from $224 million, or 21 cents, in the year-ago quarter. Revenue jumped 34% from $928 million a year earlier.
Thomas Fuller | SOPA Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
AppLovin shares soared as high as 15% in extended trading after the company reported earnings and revenue that beat expectations and announced the sale of its mobile gaming business.
Here’s how the company did compared to LSEG consensus estimates:
- Earnings: $1.67 per share vs $1.45 per share expected
- Revenue: $1.48 billion vs $1.38 billion expected
AppLovin also agreed on Wednesday to sell its mobile gaming business to Tripledot Studios in a deal worth $400 million in cash considerations. The advertising tech company will also obtain a roughly 20% ownership stake in Tripledot Studios, which makes mobile games like Sudoko Friends, Puzzletime and Solitaire Classic.”
The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025.
AppLovin said second-quarter sales should come in the range of $1.2 billion to $1.22 billion, trailing analysts expectations of $1.38 billion.
The company reported first-quarter net income of $576 million, or $1.67 per share, up from $234 million, or 67 cents per share, in the same quarter of 2024.
AppLovin total costs and expenses for the first quarter came in at $820.55 million, representing a 14% increase from the previous year during the same quarter.
The ad-tech firm said in February that it had signed a term sheet to sell its apps business for “total estimated consideration” of $900 million, which included $500 million in cash.
AppLovin’s business has been split between advertising and apps, which is primarily made up of game studios that the company has acquired over the years. With the historic growth in its advertising unit, due to rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, the apps business had become much less important.
The company logged $1.16 billion in first-quarter advertising sales, up from the $678 million it recorded a year ago during the same period.
Sales of the company’s apps-related business for the quarter came in at $325 million, which was a 14% decline from the prior year.
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