Musk says he will spend less time in Washington
NEW YORK
Elon Musk says he’ll be spending less time in Washington slashing government costs and more time running Tesla after his company reported a big drop in profits.
Musk said on a conference call with analysts on April 22 that “now that the major work of establishing Department of Government Efficiency is done,” that he will be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla” starting in May.
Musk said he now expects to spend just “a day or two per week on government matters.”
Tesla struggled to sell vehicles as it faced angry protests over Musk’s leadership of DOGE.
The company reported a 71 percent drop in profits and a 9 percent decline in revenue for the first quarter.
“Investors wanted to see him recommit to Tesla,” said Wedbush Securities' Dan Ives. “This is a big step in the right direction."
Investors sent Tesla shares up more than 5 percent in after-hours trading, although they are still down more than 40 percent for the year.
The company reconfirmed that it expects to roll out a cheaper version of its best-selling vehicle, the Model Y sport utility vehicle, in the first half of this year. It also stuck with its predictions that it will be able to launch a paid driverless robotaxi service in Austin in June and have much of its fleet operating by itself next year.
Tesla’s quarterly profits fell from $1.39 billion to $409 million. That’s far below analyst estimates.
Its revenue fell from $21.3 billion to $19.3 billion in the January through March period, also below Wall Street’s forecast.
