Tesla shares surge on Trump’s regulatory plan for self-driving cars: report
Tesla shares jumped 7.2% on Monday following a report that President-elect Donald Trump plans to speed along the regulatory process on self-driving vehicles.
Trump’s transition team is aiming to make a federal framework for fully autonomous vehicles a top priority for the Transportation Department, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
The streamlined regulatory system would greatly benefit Tesla founder Elon Musk, helping Tesla deliver on its longtime promise to release a fleet of fully self-driving cars.
“Musk’s significant influence in the Trump White House is already having a major influence and ultimately the golden path for Tesla around Cybercabs and autonomous [vehicles] is now within reach,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note.
“We estimate the AI and autonomous opportunity is worth $1 trillion alone for Tesla,” he wrote.
The NHTSA currently allows manufacturers to deploy 2,500 self-driving vehicles per year and legislative attempts to raise that limit to 100,000 have failed.
Current federal rules also hamper automakers’ efforts to deploy large quantities of self-driving vehicles without steering wheels or pedals, according to Bloomberg.
During Tesla’s third-quarter earnings call, the billionaire CEO said he would use any potential position in government to advocate for a federal regulatory framework.
The president-elect’s transition team and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Musk, the world’s richest person with a net worth of $303.7 billion according to Forbes, outspokenly pushed for a Trump win this year.
He created a pro-Trump PAC and donated more than $100 million to the cause, rallied on the president-elect’s behalf in swing states and encouraged early voting with a $1 million-a-day sweepstakes.
Musk had churned out a barrage of posts on X this year that defended Trump’s policies and slammed his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.
In October, Musk unveiled the “Cybercab,” a $30,000 car with no steering wheel or pedals. The company aims to take on taxi cabs and rideshare services like Uber and Lyft by releasing human-less, autonomous cabs.
At the October event, Musk said the company will likely have “unsupervised” self-driving Model 3 and Model Y cars available in Texas and California next year.
Google’s Waymo has already beat Tesla to the punch, releasing fully self-driving vehicles on the road. In June, the company expanded its self-driving service to all users in San Francisco.
Trump has since selected Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who in January dropped out of the race for the Republican White House nomination, to lead the Department of Government Efficiency. The new agency, called “DOGE,” was pitched to Trump by Musk as a way to cut unnecessary government spending.
On Sunday, Ramaswamy said he expects entire federal agencies will be “deleted outright,” along with massive cuts among federal contractors.
Aside from the potentially smoother stamp-of-approval process, Tesla has already reaped the benefits from Trump’s win. The stock has grown 27.6% since Election Day – and Musk’s net worth is up about $40 billion, according to Forbes.
Meanwhile, Uber shares fell 5.8% and Lyft shares dropped 6.9% on Monday as investors fear Tesla’s auto-cabs could crush the competition.
Trump’s team is considering Emil Michael, a former Uber executive, for Transportation secretary, as well as Republican Representatives Sam Graves of Missouri and Garret Graves of Louisiana, sources told Bloomberg.
