In a media blitz on Tuesday, Elon Musk spoke about his commitment to Tesla, his political spending, and the coming launch of Tesla’s robotaxi service in Austin.
For months, the Tesla CEO has been deeply involved with the White House’s DOGE office. During that time, the company has faced protests and seen its stock slide. In March, he said his companies are suffering because of his government work.
In a Tesla earnings call last month, Musk said he’ll scale down his involvement with DOGE to spend more time on Tesla.
That message was on full display on Tuesday, after Musk hammered home his commitment to Tesla in his interviews with Bloomberg and CNBC.
Here are five major takeaways from Musk’s media appearances on Tuesday. Representatives for Musk at Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
1. Musk said he will stay on as Tesla’s CEO for the next five years
Musk’s media day began with a video interview with Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain at the Qatar Economic Forum. Husain asked if Musk will still be Tesla’s CEO in five years.
“Yes,” Musk replied.
“No doubt about that at all?” Husain continued.
“Well, no, I’d die,” Musk said. “Let me see if I’m dead.”
Musk has faced calls from investors to pay more attention to Tesla after his work at DOGE sparked protests and boycotts. The company has struggled with heightened competition from Chinese automakers like BYD and falling sales numbers in Europe.
“Lets call it like it is: Tesla is going through a crisis and there is one person who can fix it….Musk,” Wedbush Securities analyst and Tesla bull Dan Ives wrote in a memo in March.
“If you agree or disagree with DOGE it misses the point that by Musk spending 110% of his time with DOGE (and not as Tesla CEO) since President Trump got back into the White House this has essentially turned Tesla into a political symbol….and this is a bad thing,” Ives added in his note.
2. Musk said he’s ‘done enough’ political spending
In the interview with Husain, Musk said he will cut down on his political spending. He did not say if the decision was due to the backlash he’s faced for it.
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“In terms of political spending, I’m going to do a lot less in the future,” Musk told Husain. “I think I’ve done enough.”
He added that he’ll start contributing to political spending again if he sees a reason to do so.
Musk spent at least $277 million backing President Donald Trump and other GOP candidates in last year’s elections, making him one of Trump’s biggest supporters.
Last month, Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at the White House that he doesn’t really need Musk in his administration.
“Elon has done a fantastic job. Look, he’s sitting here, and I don’t care. I don’t need Elon for anything other than I happen to like him,” Trump said on April 10.
3. Musk said Tesla robotaxis will be geo-fenced and avoid intersections
Musk’s media blitz continued with a two-part interview with CNBC’s David Faber during which the topic of Tesla’s robotaxis came up.
Earlier this month, BI conducted a test drive of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised software. During the test, Tesla’s FSD ran a red light at an intersection in San Francisco.
During Tuesday’s interview, Faber asked Musk about BI’s reporting on the incident.
In response, Musk said Tesla’s robotaxis will be geo-fenced to certain parts of Austin and avoid intersections the company deems unsafe when the service launches next month.
“When we deploy the cars in Austin, we are actually going to deploy it not to the entire Austin region but only to the parts of Austin we consider to be the safest. So we will geo-fence it,” Musk told Faber.
“It’s not going to take intersections unless we are highly confident it’s going to do well with that intersection. Or it will just take a route around that intersection,” Musk added.
Musk announced Tesla’s robotaxi during a launch event in October. On Tuesday, he told CNBC he expects to expand Tesla’s robotaxi fleet in Austin to 1,000 vehicles “within a few months” before rolling out the service to other cities like San Francisco and San Antonio.
4. Musk said there’s no need for Tesla to buy Uber
Musk told CNBC he didn’t see a need for Tesla to buy Uber when Tesla can rely on its own fleet of autonomous vehicles.
“There’s no need because we have a large number of cars. We have millions of cars that will be able to operate autonomously,” Musk told Faber.
“And I should say that it’s a combination of a Tesla-owned fleet and also enabling Tesla owners to be able to add or subtract their car to the fleet, so that existing Tesla owners will be able to earn money by adding their car to the fleet for autonomous use,” Musk added.
In February, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said he would prefer not to compete with Musk and Tesla.
“Yeah, listen, no one wants to compete against Tesla or Elon, if you can help it,” Khosrowshahi said in an interview with technology and media analyst Ben Thompson for his newsletter, Stratechery.
Khosrowshahi told Thompson it would be beneficial for Tesla to offer rides on Uber.
“Then, that Tesla that is both on Uber, and by the way, they could be both on Uber and the network, that is going to create much, much more revenue,” Khosrowshahi said.
“Ultimately, we’re hoping that my charm and the economic argument gets Tesla to work with us as well. If they want a direct channel, no problem,” Khosrowshahi said.
5. Musk said he’s not ruling out a merger between Tesla and xAI
When asked if a merger between Tesla and xAI was on the cards, Musk said “anything is possible,” though there are “no plans to do so.”
“It’s not out of the question, but obviously it would require Tesla shareholder support,” Musk told Faber.
Musk started xAI, his AI company, in 2023. Musk cofounded OpenAI with Sam Altman in 2015 but left OpenAI’s board in 2018.
In March, xAI acquired X, formerly Twitter, in an all-stock deal that valued xAI at $80 billion and X at $33 billion. Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in October 2022.
Musk said in a livestream in January that xAI’s chatbot, Grok, will be included in Tesla’s vehicles but did not give a specific launch date.
“Grok in Tesla’s is coming soon. So you will just be able to talk to your Tesla and ask for anything,” Musk said in the livestream.
