Shares of Tesla (TSLA 5.66%) soared nearly 5.7% today, as the feud between Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk and President Donald Trump appeared to simmer in recent days. Tesla’s robotaxi service is also about to get underway in Austin, Texas.
A chaotic last week for Tesla
Last week, Musk formally left his role with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), signaling an end to his involvement in government affairs, much to the relief of Tesla investors. However, almost immediately following his departure, Musk began to criticize Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” pending in Congress, and the two began to trade insults on X.
Image source: Getty Images.
The conflict reached a boiling point after Trump hinted at potentially canceling government satellite contracts tied to Musk’s rocket company SpaceX. Tesla’s stock plummeted 14% last Thursday. But the two seemed to have cooled off in recent days, and Trump said on Monday that he has no plans to cancel SpaceX contracts and wished Musk well.
In other news, videos of Tesla’s robotaxis beginning to drive around in Austin, Texas, surfaced on X, renewing hype over the rollout of Tesla’s full self-driving (FSD) technology. As previously reported by Bloomberg and other media outlets, Tesla is set to debut its first 10 robotaxis in Austin on June 12. The cars will be remotely supervised by humans and geofenced to start.
All eyes on robotaxis
All eyes will be on the robotaxi launch. Investors and analysts are trying to figure out how well the technology works and if Tesla will actually be able to scale the network and start generating revenue later this year.
Although an exciting stock, Tesla still trades at too high of a valuation, in my opinion, and the company’s core electric vehicle business has been struggling. This makes Tesla risky should the EV business continue to struggle, and especially if robotaxis fail to live up to expectations, so I would stay on the sidelines for now.
Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Tesla. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
