Elon Musk’s latest moves, having firmly returned to the wheel of Tesla (persuaded by a new $29 billion bonus), have managed to overshadow even the financial figures collected by his car company, which have finally started to turn towards clearer skies: in the first quarter, revenues reached $22.39 billion, earnings per share were $0.41, free cash flow, despite the period of expenses, settled around $1.444 billion, but above all, deliveries increased by 6.3% compared to the previous year, when everyone was boycotting the brand due to the alliance, poorly received by green and electric car enthusiasts, between the entrepreneur and Donald Trump that had brought Musk to the Doge.
TESLA SLOWS DOWN ON CARS AND FOCUSES ON ROBOTS
With the White House door now closed behind him, at least for the moment, Musk has returned to full-time attention to his companies. The meeting with analysts confirmed above all what had long been suspected, if only because the Texan manufacturer’s product line has been frozen for years without welcoming new models: Tesla will focus more in the near future on hi-tech products related to other market types which, while bearing the same highly recognizable brand, will not have wheels.
From this perspective, the discontinuation of the latest S and X models not only signals the intention to abandon the premium electric car segment but also highlights the halt in the automotive segment: those lines inside the American Fremont gigafactory will be dismantled starting early June because the same facilities will assemble the Optimus robots, whose production is expected to begin in full summer.
ELON MUSK REINVENTS TESLA LOOKING TOWARD ROBOTAXIS
At the same time, another possible pivot is noticeable by paying attention to Musk’s words: in the latest meeting with analysts commenting on the quarterly results, the richest man in the world confirmed he wants to bet everything on the Cybercab: “We think that probably most of our long-term production will consist of the Cybercab, because 90% of the miles driven are with one or two people on board. This means we want the vast majority of our production to be Cybercab.”
In short, in these terms, the interpretation that can be given is that Tesla’s focus is shifting from producing cars for private customers to producing cars aimed at offering a robotaxi service, a market that, although still in its infancy, already features numerous players running back and forth on the streets of various cities (mostly American and Chinese), from Amazon’s Zoox to the many partnerships struck by Uber, to the Chinese Pony.ai, without of course forgetting Alphabet’s (Google) Cruise. And this just to limit the roundup to the main ones.
Musk also explained: “The future range will be almost entirely autonomous. In fact, in the long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster.”
AND WHAT ABOUT THE TESLA ROADSTER?
Yes, what about the Tesla Roadster? Fans of the American brand have been waiting to see it in dealerships for ten years. The latest statement in this regard scheduled the presentation for the end of April 2026, but Musk had to admit it will take at least another month. Yet another sign, precisely, that cars for private customers may no longer be at the center of Tesla’s plans. Also because when it was first talked about, back in 2017, the Roadster’s commercialization was set for 2020.
If to the umpteenth delay you add the fact that the growth of Chinese competition, mainly represented by Byd, contrary to expectations, does not seem to have accelerated the development of the much-anticipated affordable Tesla and the sales flop of the Cybertruck remains in the background, a possible departure from the traditional family car sales business might not seem so unusual.
Moreover, staying precisely on the registrations of the model stubbornly wanted by the South African entrepreneur, according to information conveyed by Bloomberg, in the fourth quarter of 2025 about 20% of the Cybertrucks delivered were actually purchased by companies directly linked to Elon Musk: out of 7,071 units sold between October and December, about 1,350 were registered by SpaceX, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and xAI, which, as is known, fall under the portfolio of the richest man in the world.
THE DREAM OF AUTONOMOUS DRIVING ON OLD MODELS REMAINS JUST THAT?
Finally, there is one last piece of news that probably won’t please fans of the Texan brand: Elon Musk has had to admit in the end that millions of Teslas equipped with Hardware 3 (better known as HW3) will not be able to achieve a form of Full Self-Driving without supervision (that is, the one promised from the start) without a physical platform upgrade that would not offer sufficient computing power to actually exploit that type of technology. The problem, however, is that many bought a Tesla chasing the dream of a fully autonomous car and class actions by users determined to get at least a refund for an option that has never really materialized could therefore emerge. But that is another story.
