Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) joins former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at the positioning of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Oct. 5, 2024.
Jim Watson | Afp | Getty Images
Tesla shares jumped Monday following a report that President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team is planning to make a federal framework to control self-driving vehicles a top priority for the U.S. Transport Department.
Tesla’s stock closed up greater than 5% Monday after the discharge of the Bloomberg News report, which cited unnamed sources accustomed to the matter.
CNBC couldn’t independently confirm the report and has requested comment from the Trump team and from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a Transportation Department unit tasked to oversee self-driving technologies.
Musk was a central figure within the business world pushing for Trump’s return to the White House within the lead-up to this month’s elections. The tech billionaire now stands to profit from the close relationship he has formed with the Republican politician, who previously served a primary presidential term between 2017 and 2021.
Last week, Trump picked Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to steer the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency — or “DOGE” for brief — which he said would end government “bureaucracy,” chill out “excess” regulations and cut “wasteful” expenditures.
A federal framework for regulating self-driving vehicles could be a significant boon to Musk’s Tesla, which has been promising fully self-driving vehicles for several years but has to this point didn’t deliver a automotive able to being driven autonomously and not using a human behind the wheel.
The long-term vision for Tesla is to supply a fleet of so-called robotaxis, autonomous vehicles that may drive people around without the necessity for human supervision.
Last month, Musk showed off Tesla’s long-awaited robotaxi — an idea automotive called the “Cybercab,” a $30,000 two-seater vehicle with no steering wheels or pedals.
Tesla has already been beaten to the punch within the robotaxi race by Google’s Waymo enterprise, which is among the many few corporations which have successfully launched self-driving cars on public roads.
Speaking during an event unveiling Tesla’s Cybercab and “Robovan” vehicles, Musk said he expects Tesla to have “unsupervised” Full Self-Driving technology up and running in Texas and California next yr in the corporate’s Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles.
Full Self-Driving, or FSD, is Tesla’s premium driver assistance system, currently available in a “supervised” version for Tesla electric vehicles. FSD currently requires a human driver on the wheel, able to steer or brake at any time.
Trump’s transition team is reportedly searching for policy leaders for the Transportation Department to develop a federal regulatory framework for self-driving vehicles, in response to Bloomberg.
They include Emil Michael, a former Uber executive and Republican Reps. Sam Graves of Missouri and Garret Graves of Louisiana, who are usually not related, Bloomberg reported.
