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

Technology giants Amazon, IBM, Google, Intel and Microsoft are all working on quantum technology, as are various other companies like Rigetti, IonQ, Quantum Computing Inc. and D-Wave Quantum Inc.

The latest entrant into the space is Nvidia, with CEO Jensen Huang announcing in March that the company will build a quantum computing research center in Boston. 

“The surge in excitement now is driven by a convergence of technological advancements, funding and clearer pathways to real world applications,” said Matt Langione, managing director and partner at Boston Consulting Group. “By some estimates, greater than $50 billion have been pledged to quantum technologies, of which quantum computing is one, by governments around the world.”

Experts say quantum computing has the potential to efficiently solve problems that would be taxing if not impossible for classical computers, though this does not mean that the technology will replace classical computers entirely. 

“Quantum computing will actually drive more classical computing because they’re very complementary,” Langione said. “Future problems that are solved by quantum computers will always be solved by hybrid setups, where you have a classical computer doing the part of the algorithm where classical computers are more efficient, and a quantum computer performing the part of the algorithm where quantum computers are more efficient.” 

For example, quantum systems could be more efficient for things like coming up with new drug therapies or materials for better batteries. Analysts at McKinsey and Company estimate that the four industries likely to see the earliest economic impact from quantum computing are mobility, chemicals, financial services and life sciences, which stand to gain up to $2 trillion in value by 2035. 

“It’s a new class of computation that I think can dramatically change most aspects of industry, commerce and science,” said Peter Barrett, founder and general partner at venture capital firm Playground Global, which is also a major investor in quantum computing startup PsiQuantum.

Despite massive advancements in the field in recent years, quantum computers still aren’t able to solve big real-world problems just yet. 

CNBC visited Silicon Valley startup PsiQuantum to find out how close we are to having a useful quantum computer and spoke to experts about the major challenges this tech still faces as engineers work to transition the tech from lab experimentation to commercial viability. Watch the video to find out more.

CNBC’s Kate Rooney contributed to this report.

Elon Musk received a court summons last week in connection with the SEC’s lawsuit over his alleged failure to properly disclose purchases of Twitter stock in 2022 before bidding to buy the company, according to a filing on Thursday.

A process server delivered the civil summons to Musk on March 14, at the headquarters of SpaceX in Brownsville, Texas, the filing said. The server noted that upon his arrival at the SpaceX facility, three different security guards refused to accept the documents, and one told him he was trespassing. He “placed the documents on the ground,” and left while the guards photographed him and his car.

The summons pertains to a case concerning Musk’s eventual purchase of Twitter, now known as X, for $44 billion in 2022. Prior to the acquisition, Musk built up a position in the company of greater than 5%, which would’ve required disclosing his holdings to the public within 10 calendar days of reaching that threshold.

According to the SEC’s civil complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in January, Musk was more than 10 days late in reporting that material information, “allowing him to underpay by at least $150 million for shares he purchased after his financial beneficial ownership report was due.”

Once he took over Twitter, Musk used the platform to promote then-candidate and now President Donald Trump, and other Republican candidates and causes. Musk, who’s also CEO of Tesla, spent some $290 million to help propel Trump back to the White House and now serves within the administration as a top advisor to the president.

An answer from Musk, or his attorneys, is due on April 4.

The SEC, Elon Musk, and Quinn Emanuel Partner Alex Spiro, his lawyer, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment

Trump’s White House has directed deep cuts in the budget and staff of independent federal regulatory agencies, including the SEC. The regulator offered $50,000 to many of its employees, encouraging them to resign or retire by March 21.

The Trump administration has also reversed a 15-year-old policy that allowed the SEC’s director of enforcement to issue formal orders of investigation. The agency will now require requests for formal orders of investigation to be pitched to and approved by a vote of SEC commissioners, a change likely to slow down probes like the one that led to the SEC’s suit against Musk.

Musk previously settled civil securities fraud charges brought by the SEC at Tesla, his autos business. In that matter, Musk and Tesla each had to pay $20 million in fines, and Musk had to temporarily relinquish his role as chairman of the Tesla board.

WATCH: Ron Baron on Elon Musk