Tesla shares rose 7.2% on Monday after reports that President-elect Donald Trump plans to speed up the regulatory process for self-driving cars.
President Trump's transition team aims to make the federal framework for fully autonomous vehicles a top priority for the Department of Transportation, sources said. told Bloomberg.
A streamlined regulatory system would greatly benefit Tesla founder Elon Musk and help the company fulfill its long-held promise to launch a fleet of fully self-driving cars.
“Musk's massive influence in the Trump White House has already been very influential and will ultimately be Tesla's golden path for cybercabs and self-driving cars.” [vehicles] It is now within reach,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote in a note.
“We estimate that the AI and self-driving opportunity is worth $1 trillion for Tesla alone,” he wrote.
NHTSA currently allows manufacturers to deploy 2,500 self-driving cars a year, but legislative attempts to raise that cap to 100,000 have failed.
According to Bloomberg, current federal rules also hinder automakers' efforts to mass deploy self-driving cars without steering wheels or pedals.
During Tesla's third-quarter earnings call, the billionaire CEO said he would use every potential position within the government to support the federal regulatory framework.
The president-elect's transition team and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did not respond to requests for comment.
Musk, the world's richest man with a net worth of $303.7 billion according to Forbes, openly claimed Trump won this year.
He founded a pro-Trump PAC, donated more than $100 million to the movement, rallied on behalf of the president-elect in battleground states, and encouraged early voting with a $1 million a day giveaway.
Musk has posted a number of posts on X this year defending Trump's policies and slamming 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 compete with taxis and ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft by releasing driverless, self-driving taxis.
Musk said at an October event that the company's “unsupervised” self-driving Model 3 and Model Y will likely be available in Texas and California next year.
Google's Waymo has already beaten Tesla to release fully self-driving cars on the road. In June, the company expanded self-driving services to all users in San Francisco.
President Trump then selected Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who withdrew from the race for the Republican White House nomination in January, to lead the Department of Government Efficiency. The new agency, called DOGE, was pitched by Musk to Trump as a way to cut unnecessary government spending.
Ramaswamy said Sunday that he expects entire federal agencies to be “completely eliminated,” along with large-scale reductions in federal contractors.
Aside from a potentially smoother approval process, Tesla is already benefiting from President Trump's victory. According to Forbes, the stock has risen 27.6% since election day, adding about $40 billion to Musk's net worth.
Meanwhile, Uber shares fell 5.8% and Lyft shares fell 6.9% on Monday as investors worried that Tesla's taxis could crush competition.
The Trump campaign has selected former Uber executive Emile Michael to be Secretary of Transportation, as well as Republican U.S. Reps. Sam Graves of Missouri and Garrett Graves of Louisiana, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. It is said to be under consideration.
