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Investing.com -- Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) shares rose nearly 3% Thursday, outperforming a flat Nasdaq, after Chief Executive Elon Musk announced an accelerated rollout of the company’s robotaxi service. The rally indicates renewed investor confidence in the EV maker’s long-promised autonomy ambitions, even as vehicle deliveries decline and political entanglements raise questions about Musk’s focus.
Musk revealed on X that Tesla’s robotaxi offering in Austin, launched less than three weeks ago, will expand this weekend. He also confirmed plans to bring the service to the Bay Area within the next one to two months, pending regulatory approval.
Gene Munster, Managing Partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said the announcements were ahead of what he had forecast. "I would have expected the fleet to begin to expand in Austin in late July, with addition of a new city in December," he added, noting the speed at which Tesla is moving.
Munster emphasized that the near-term goal isn’t a broad fleet presence, but rapid iterations of expansion to achieve scale. "Over the next 6 months, the absolute number of vehicles and cities matters little, what matters most is the pace of expansion," he said.
The rally in Tesla stock also signals a brief respite from the political drama that has surrounded Musk in recent months. His high-profile entry into President Donald Trump’s administration and the ensuing fallout over the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” had clouded investor outlook, especially after EV tax credits were slashed.
Speculation had mounted that Musk’s increasing political activism, including his launch of "The America Party," was distracting from Tesla’s core automotive business. These fears have paired with declining Tesla delivery volumes, creating a perfect storm of stock volatility. But the renewed market focus on autonomy suggests investors are still willing to stomach Musk’s unpredictability if vehicle automation progresses. As Munster noted, "autonomy is more important than deliveries."
Despite the narrow financial boost linked directly to the robotaxi operations thus far, the narrative around autonomy as Tesla’s future growth engine is taking shape. With successful launches in Austin and potentially California, Tesla aims to stake early ground in what it hopes will be a capital-light, high-margin business model.