5 quotes: Elon Musk on robotaxi timeline, Optimus robots, tariffs, energy and Tesla’s future

Published

7 months ago

April 23, 2025

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Elon Musk steps off Air Force One upon arrival at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey, on March 22, 2025. US President Donald Trump will be spending the weekend at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

Brendan Smialowski | Afp | Getty Images

Elon Musk tried to rally Tesla bulls Tuesday, brushing off a weak first-quarter earnings report and touting a future of “sustainable abundance.”

Tesla missed expectations on the top and bottom lines and reported a 71% plunge in net income from the year prior.

His comments came as the electric vehicle faces a turbulent year, with shares down nearly 40%, European market share slumping along with deliveries — and the brand under siege with regular protests at showrooms across the U.S.

When the report came out Tuesday after hours, shares did not react, with all eyes on Musk‘s comments on the earnings call. Shares popped Wednesday along with the broader stock market.

Musk immediately addressed his efforts with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency under President Donald Trump, saying he would be reducing his federal budget-slashing efforts starting in May.

“I’ll have to continue doing it for, I think, probably the remainder of the president’s term,” Musk said on the call. He added, “So I think I’ll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the President would like me to do so and as long as it is useful but starting next month, I’ll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla.”

Here are five key quotes from Musk on the Tesla earnings call, as transcribed by FactSet:

Future of Tesla:

“The future of the company is fundamentally based on large-scale autonomous cars and large-scale and large volume, vast numbers of autonomous humanoid robots.

So, the value of the company that makes truly useful autonomous humanoid robots and autonomous useful vehicles at scale at low cost, which is what Tesla is going to do is staggering. I continue to believe that Tesla with excellent execution will be the most valuable company in the world by far. “

Financial impact of robotaxi:

“I said I think on the last earnings call that we will start to see the prosperity of autonomy take effect in a material way around the middle of next year. We expect to have – be selling fully autonomous rides in June in Austin as we’ve been saying for now several months. So, that’s continued.

But the real question from financial standpoint is when does it really become material and affect the bottom-line of the company and start to be a fundamental part of the – when does it move the financial needle in a significant way? That’s probably around the middle of next year, second half of next year.”

Optimus robots:

“And with regards to Optimus, making good progress in Optimus. We expect to have thousands of Optimus robots working in Tesla factories by the end of this year, beginning this fall. And we expect to scale Optimus up faster than any product, I think, in history to get to millions of units per year as soon as possible. I think we feel confident in getting to 1 million units per year in less than five years, maybe four years. So by 2030, I feel confident in predicting 1 million Optimus units per year. It might be 2029.”

Tariffs:

“Now tariffs are still tough on a company when margins are still low. But we do have localized supply chains in both America, Europe, and China. So that puts us in a stronger position than any of our competitors. And undoubtedly, I’m going to get a lot of questions about tariffs. And I just want to emphasize that the tariff decision is entirely up to the President of the United States. I will weigh in with my advice with the President, which if he will listen to my advice but then it’s up to him, of course, to make his decision.

I’ve been on the record many times saying that I believe lower tariffs are generally a good idea for prosperity. But this decision is fundamentally up to the elected representative of the people being the President of the United States. So I’ll continue to advocate for lower tariffs rather than higher tariffs, but that’s all I can do.”

Tesla energy segment:

“With respect to energy, our energy business is doing very well. The Megapack … enables utility companies to output far more total energy than would otherwise be the case. When you think of the energy capability of a grid, it’s much more than, let’s say, total energy output per year. If a power plants could operate at peak power for all 24 hours as opposed to being at half power, sometimes a quarter power at night, then you could double the energy output of existing power plants.”

Technology

Tesla obtains permit to operate ride-hail service in Arizona

Published

3 hours ago

November 19, 2025

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Tesla obtains permit to operate ride-hail service in Arizona

A Tesla Inc. robotaxi on Oltorf Street in Austin, Texas, on June 22, 2025.

Tim Goessman | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Tesla has obtained a permit to operate a ride-hailing service in Arizona, the state’s department of transportation said.

The electric vehicle company applied for a “transportation network company” permit on Nov. 13, and was approved on Monday, ADOT said in an emailed statement. Additional permits will be required before Tesla can operate a robotaxi service in Arizona.

In July, Tesla applied to conduct autonomous vehicle testing and operations in Phoenix, with and without human safety drivers on board. A month earlier, Tesla started a robotaxi pilot in Austin, Texas, with safety valets and remote operators. Tesla also operates a more traditional car service in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Tesla didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tesla plans to take human safety drivers out of its cars in Austin before the end of this year. The company is aiming to operate a commercial robotaxi service in Phoenix and several other U.S. cities before the end of 2026.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website, Tesla cars equipped with automated driving systems were involved in seven reported collisions following the launch of the company’s pilot in Texas.

Competitors including Alphabet’s Waymo in the U.S. and Baidu’s Apollo Go in China are way ahead in the nascent robotaxi ride-hailing market. In the Phoenix area, Waymo operates a sizable commercial business, with at least 400 autonomous vehicles, the company previously told CNBC. In May, Waymo said it had surpassed 10 million driverless trips served to riders across the U.S.

Baidu said in an earnings update on Tuesday that its Apollo Go service “provided 3.1 million fully driverless operational rides in the third quarter of 2025,” representing year-over-year growth of 212%.

Musk has been promising that Tesla will “solve” autonomy for years without reaching its goals. The world’s richest person has continued with the lofty pronouncements.

At the company’s 2025 shareholder meeting earlier this month, Musk said the “killer app” for self-driving technology is when people can “text and drive,” or “sleep and drive.”

“Before we allow the car to be driven without paying attention, we need to make sure it’s very safe,” Musk said. “We’re on the cusp of that. I know I’ve said that a few times. We really are at this point.”

WATCH: Baidu to ramp up global exports as robotaxi service grows in China

Technology

CNBC Daily Open: The flow of money in AI appears one-way at this point

Published

6 hours ago

November 19, 2025

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CNBC Daily Open: The flow of money in AI appears one-way at this point

The Anthropic website on Friday, Aug. 22, 2025.

Gabby Jones | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Money keeps flowing into artificial intelligence companies but out of AI stocks.

In what looks like — once again — a scenario of the left hand scratching the right, Microsoft and Nvidia will be investing a combined $15 billion into Anthropic, while the OpenAI competitor has committed to buying compute power from its two newest stakeholders. At this point, it seems as if a big proportion of AI news can be summarized as: “Company X invests in Company Y, and Company Y will buy things from Company X.”

Okay, that’s unfair. There are a lot of developments in the AI world that are not about investments but, well, development. Google unveiled the third version of Gemini, its AI model, which Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google’s AI unit DeepMind, said “will be “trading cliché and flattery for genuine insight.” (But I still want an AI chatbot to compliment me on my curiosity when I ask how to cut a pear, so I’m not sure if that’s a pro for me.)

Investors, however, still appear skeptical about AI. Major names such as Nvidia, Amazon and Microsoft tumbled Tuesday stateside, giving the S&P 500 its fourth straight session in the red — the longest decline since August.

And if Nvidia — “the top company within the top industry within the top sector,” as CFRA’s chief investment strategist Sam Stovall puts it — fails to satisfy investors’ expectations when it reports earnings Wednesday, we might be seeing the S&P 500’s slide extend.

What you need to know today

The S&P 500 falls for a fourth consecutive day. Other major indexes also moved lower Tuesday stateside, while bitcoin prices dropped below $90,000 before recovering. Europe’s regional Stoxx 600 sank 1.72% and touched its lowest level in a month.

Anthropic signs deal with Microsoft and Nvidia. Microsoft announced Tuesday it will invest up to $5 billion in the startup, while Nvidia will put in up to $10 billion. That puts Anthropic’s valuation around $350 billion, according to a source.

Google announces its latest AI model Gemini 3. Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said Tuesday it will require “less prompting” for desired answers. The update comes eight months after Google introduced Gemini 2.5, and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

U.S. Senators urge investigation into Trump-linked crypto firm. World Liberty Finance, heavily owned and run by the Trump family, sold tokens to a North Korean hacking organization, an Iranian crypto exchange and others, according to a corporate watchdog.

[PRO] Potentially resilient stocks amid AI slump. There are some global stocks and non-equity assets that could weather the turbulence in U.S. tech names happening recently, strategists told CNBC.

And finally…

Oleksii Liskonih | Istock | Getty Images

Diplomatic spat between Tokyo and Beijing threatens Japan’s already fragile economy

Miffed over Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s comments related to Taiwan, China on Friday advised its citizens against travelling to the country. Japanese tourism-exposed stocks fell in the aftermath of that warning, while experts caution the impact could be more severe over a longer duration.

Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at Nomura Research Institute, said tensions between the two Asian powers could result in a 1.79 trillion yen drop in Japan’s GDP over the course of one year — a 0.29% decline in the country’s GDP.

— Lim Hui Jie