Elon Musk announced that he will be stepping back from his role in DOGE to dedicate more time to running Tesla after the electric vehicle company reported a significant drop in profits.
During a conference call with analysts on Tuesday, Musk stated, “Now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done,” he would be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla” starting in May. He clarified that he expects to spend just “a day or two per week on government matters.”
Tesla is facing challenges in selling vehicles, amid protests concerning Musk’s leadership of DOGE, a controversial jobs-cutting initiative that has sparked division across the nation. The company revealed a 71% drop in profits and a 9% decline in revenue for the first quarter.
“Investors wanted to see him recommit to Tesla,” said Dan Ives, a senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities. “This is a big step in the right direction.”
Following the announcement, Tesla shares rose more than 5% in after-hours trading on Tuesday in the US, though they are still down over 40% year-to-date. The company reaffirmed its plan to introduce a more affordable version of its best-selling Model Y sport utility vehicle in the first half of this year. Additionally, Tesla maintained its forecast for launching a paid driverless robotaxi service in Austin by June, with plans for a large portion of its fleet to be operating autonomously by next year.
“There will be millions of Teslas operating autonomously in the second half of the year,” Musk said during the call. He later commented on the potential for personal use of autonomous vehicles, saying, “Can you go to sleep in our cars and wake up at your destination? I’m confident that will be available in many cities in the US by the end of this year.”
However, some experts expressed skepticism about Musk’s ambitious timeline. Sam Abuelsamid, an auto analyst at Telemetry Insight, questioned the feasibility of the plan: “The system is not robust enough to operate unsupervised. It still makes far too many errors. It will suddenly make mistakes that will lead to a crash.”
The rollout of Tesla’s robotaxi service — which would operate without a steering wheel or pedals — comes amid ongoing federal investigations into the safety of Tesla’s driverless technology. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is probing whether the company’s autopilot system, which can steer or stop a car but still requires human intervention, adequately alerts drivers when their attention drifts.
Similarly, Tesla’s full self-driving technology, which remains only partially autonomous, has faced criticism for misleading branding and for being linked to accidents in low-visibility situations, such as when there’s sun glare.
