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Elon Musk interviews on CNBC from the Tesla headquarters in Texas.

CNBC

Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the company will have robotaxis on the streets of Austin, Texas, by the end of June.

In an interview with CNBC’s David Faber on Tuesday at the company’s headquarters in Austin, Musk said Tesla aims to bring its robotaxis to Los Angeles and San Francisco following the planned Austin debut.

Musk said a Tesla robotaxi service will start with about 10 vehicles in Austin, and rapidly expand to thousands of vehicles should the launch go well with no incidents.

Since 2016, Musk has been promising Tesla investors, customers and fans that the company is about a year away from delivering a self-driving car that’s capable of transporting passengers safely without human interventions, or a human at the steering wheel. However, Tesla does not yet offer a vehicle safe to use without human supervision.

“It’s prudent for us to start with a small number, confirm that things are going well and then scale it up,” Musk said.

To start, Tesla has said its robotaxis will be Model Y vehicles equipped with a forthcoming version of FSD, or full self-driving, known as FSD Unsupervised.

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Alphabet’s Waymo is currently operating commercial, driverless ride-hailing services in various U.S. markets. On a recent earnings call, Alphabet said Waymo already conducts 250,000 paid trips per week.

Musk said Tesla “will geofence” its robotaxis in Austin to start, meaning the company will limit where those Model Y vehicles can drive. But there won’t be a human safety driver in the cars, Musk promised.

Tesla employees will be remotely monitoring the fleet, he said.

“We’ll be watching what the cars are doing very carefully and as confidence grows, less of that will be needed,” Musk said.

Musk has previously claimed Tesla’s “generalized” approach to robotaxis is more ambitious than Waymo’s. Tesla relies on camera-based systems and computer vision primarily instead of using sophisticated sensors including lidar and radar in its vehicles.

Musk has said those sensors were expensive and could impede high-volume robotaxi production and scaling of a global fleet.

“What will actually work best for the road system is artificial intelligence, digital neural nets and cameras,” Musk said Tuesday.

Faber pressed Musk on the political backlash that Tesla has faced in response to his involvement with President Donald Trump’s administration, and in German politics. Tesla saw declining EV sales, including a 20% drop in automotive revenue in the first quarter of 2025.

Musk attributed the sales decline to the company needing to retool its factories to begin production of a refreshed version of its most popular car, the Model Y.

“We can’t make cars if the factories are retooling. But we’ve seen a major rebound in demand at this point,” Musk said, without providing numbers. “When you buy a product, how much do you care about the political views of the CEO or even care what they are?”

While remaining at the helm of Tesla and also running SpaceX and xAI, Musk is serving as a key advisor to Trump after spending nearly $300 million to propel him back to the White House.

Musk founded the “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE, which brought sweeping changes to Washington with a slash-and-burn campaign to gut agencies and purge the federal workforce. President Donald Trump has supported the Musk-led cuts.

Musk’s holdings in Tesla and SpaceX make him the world’s wealthiest individual, with an estimated net worth of around $376 billion today, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Earlier Tuesday, Musk said he is committed to leading Tesla for the next five years.

“Yes, no doubt about that at all,” Musk said in a video interview during Bloomberg’s Qatar Economic Forum in Doha.

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Quantum stocks Rigetti Computing and D-Wave surged double-digits this week. Here’s what’s driving the big move

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Quantum stocks Rigetti Computing and D-Wave surged double-digits this week. Here's what's driving the big move

Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.

CNBC

Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.

Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.

The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.

Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.

In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”

Investors have piled into quantum computing technology this year, as tech giants Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon have embraced the technology with a wave of new chip announcements, multi-million dollar investments and research plans.

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Quantum computing is the most radical technology in history: Bank of America's Haim Israel

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How to get Sora app invite codes for OpenAI’s viral AI video creator

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How to get Sora app invite codes for OpenAI's viral AI video creator

Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

OpenAI’s new artificial intelligence video app Sora has already grabbed the top spot in Apple‘s App Store as its number one free app, despite being invite-only.

Sora, which was launched on Tuesday, allows users to create short-form AI videos and share them in a feed. The app is available to iPhone users but requires an invite code to access.

Here’s how to snag a Sora app invite code:

  • First, download the app from the iOS App Store. Note that Sora requires iOS 18.0 or later to be downloaded.
  • Login using your OpenAI account.
  • Click “Notify me when access opens.”

A screen will then appear asking for an access code.

Currently, OpenAI has said that it is prioritizing paying ChatGPT Pro users for Sora access. The app is only available in the U.S. and Canada, but is expected to roll out to additional countries soon, the company said.

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If you do not know someone who can provide an access code, several people are sharing invite codes on the official OpenAI Discord server, as well as on X and Reddit threads.

Once you input your access, you will be able to start generating AI videos using text or images. Users are also able to cameo as characters in their videos as well as “remix” other posts.

The app is powered by the new Sora 2.0 model, an updated version of the original Sora model from last year. The video generation model is “physically accurate, realistic, and more controllable” than prior systems, the company said in a blog post.

OpenAI's Sora 2 sparks AI 'slop' backlash

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OpenAI’s invite-only video generation app Sora tops Apple’s App Store

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OpenAI's invite-only video generation app Sora tops Apple’s App Store

Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

OpenAI now has two of the top three free apps in Apple’s App Store, and its new video generation app Sora has snagged the coveted No. 1 spot.

The artificial intelligence startup launched Sora on Tuesday, and it allows users to generate short-form AI videos, remix videos created by other users and post them to a shared feed. Sora is only available on iOS devices and is invite-based, which means users need a code to access it.

Despite these restrictions, Sora has secured the top spot in the App Store, ahead of Google‘s Gemini and OpenAI’s generative chatbot ChatGPT.

“It’s been epic to see what the collective creativity of humanity is capable of so far,” Bill Peebles, head of Sora at OpenAI, wrote in a post on X on Friday. “Team is iterating fast and listening to feedback.”

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Sora is powered by OpenAI’s latest video and audio generation model called Sora 2. OpenAI said the model is capable of creating scenes and sounds with “a high degree of realism,” according to a blog post. The startup’s first video and audio generation model, Sora, was announced in February 2024.

OpenAI said it has taken steps to address potential safety concerns around the Sora app, including giving users explicit control over how their likeness is used on the platform. But some of the initial videos posted to the app, including one that depicts OpenAI CEO Sam Altman shoplifting, have sparked debates about its utility, potential for harm and legality.

“It is easy to imagine the degenerate case of AI video generation that ends up with us all being sucked into an RL-optimized slop feed,” Altman wrote in a post on X on Tuesday. “The team has put great care and thought into trying to figure out how to make a delightful product that doesn’t fall into that trap, and has come up with a number of promising ideas.”

WATCH: OpenAI’s Sora 2 sparks AI ‘slop’ backlash

OpenAI's Sora 2 sparks AI 'slop' backlash

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