Eyes on Tesla following rumors that the Trump administration is aiming for a regulations federal for regulate i self-driving vehicles. Yesterday the title of the company led by Elon Musk has jumped up to over +7%, and although today in the premarket the indications are for -2%, the market capitalization has returned to the trillion dollar mark. The stock has gained about 28% since then.
Elon Musk himself, one of the most fervent supporters and collaborators of the new US president Donald Trump, has bet on self-driving cars, thanks to the use of sensors and artificial intelligence. Trump promises bureaucratic simplifications. But there are other issues on the table.
The hypothesis of a unified federal regulation
According to an article by Bloomberg, President-elect Donald Trump's transition team plans to make a federal regulatory framework for self-driving vehicles a top priority for the Department of Transportation. The report was released just days after Trump nominated the automaker's CEO, Elon Musk, co-director of the new administration's Department of Government Efficiency. According to the report, which cites people familiar with the matter, Trump's team is looking for policy leaders at the Transportation Department to develop a federal regulatory framework.
Just last month Musk had criticized the process of State-by-state approval, required for self-driving vehicles, calling it “incredibly painful.” A few weeks earlier he had presented the robotaxi “Cybercab” two-seater, without steering wheel and pedals, whose production is planned for 2026. Certainly a unified federal regulation could streamline the approval process, allowing Tesla to move forward with FSD testing more quickly.
But software remains a headache
However, at the moment, regulation is not the main obstacle holding Tesla back: it is the with the company's Full Self-Driving (FSD) driver assistance system, which is not yet fully autonomous and requires driver supervision. The FSD technology, under development by over four years, is also the subject of survey by the US auto safety agency, after four accidents reported involving Tesla vehicles equipped with such software, including a fatal crash in 2023.
Musk's fortune, declared the world's richest man, has risen to $313 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In one year, thanks to his new political role, Musk has already earned (on paper) $84,3 billion, increasing by almost $100 billion the gap that separates him from Jeff Bezos (Amazon), the world's second richest man with $224 billion, and Larry Ellison (Oracle), in third place with $197 billion.
