It was almost a throwaway line in Tesla's Q3 earnings call tonight. But it spoke volumes.
Amid dismissing the need for more affordable electric cars that aren't fully autonomous, tripling down on a plan for the widespread deployment of robotaxis and claiming the goal is to make 2 million of them per year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk slipped in a mention about the legal hurdles that would come with implementing such a plan.
"There should be a federal approval process for autonomous vehicles," Musk said, just as vehicle safety regulations exist at the national level as well. In the call, Musk and other Tesla executives noted that a process to do so began around 2017 or 2018, only to have stalled out since.
What's left is a state-by-state patchwork of regulations that govern autonomous car testing and deployment. Those rules vary wildly from place to place—preventing, for example, the national deployment of any kind of robotaxi service.
That makes sense. It's the same thing that nearly everyone in the autonomy space is calling for, and has for a long time.
Then Musk got to the important part. "National approval is important," he said. "If there is a Department of Government Efficiency, I will try to make that happen.”
He was, of course, referring to the crypto-themed federal department supposedly dedicated to reducing wasteful spending that Musk says he wants to be a part of, or head, if President Donald Trump is re-elected. Despite Trump once saying Musk builds "rocketships to nowhere" and "self-driving cars that crash," the two have formed an "anti-woke" alliance, with Musk awkwardly stumping and awkwardly dancing during Trump rallies. And now, Musk's political aspirations have crept into his latest Tesla earnings call.
As a longtime student of Elonology, that felt like far more than just a throwaway line. I don't think I'm alone there. Bloomberg picked up on it too. To me, at least, that felt like the clearest statement of intent as to why Musk is backing Trump so heavily right now, to the point of not only donating to his reelection campaign but throwing rallies in the swing state of Pennsylvania and even—legally dubiously—literally paying people to vote. If they happen to vote for his guy, so be it.
Here's how I read that line: There need to be federal rules that govern autonomous cars, but they need to be my rules, specifically. And I may soon have the power and influence to make that happen.
That's Musk in a nutshell, really. There's no free speech except the free speech he wants, no "bias" on social media but for the bias he deems acceptable, and no rules but his own. Even his love of Trump seems more rooted in their shared hatred of anyone who dares get in their way than in any ideological alignment.
Then again, why bother being the richest man on earth if you can't dictate terms to everyone else?
Not a day goes by here at InsideEVs when we don't hear from, in emails, comments and social media posts, longtime Tesla fans, owners and even investors truly baffled by Musk's recent political turn. Much of that does fly in the face of Tesla's original "We're here to bust up big oil and save the world" mission—however real or not real that may have been—and there is real evidence to believe it's turning off new owners to the brand as well.
But if you want to know why Musk is backing Trump so heavily lately, beyond perhaps a shared disdain for "wokeness" (however that's defined this week), then that would be why. Musk sees an in to plow through all those pesky regulations and rules and laws that have dogged his efforts for years, especially where autonomy is concerned. To prove, once in for all, that nobody can stop him. And he's hitching his $246 billion wagon to the horse that he thinks can do it.
To be fair, Musk is actually right that the U.S. does need federalized regulations and standards around autonomous vehicles. This technology may have its ups and downs like any other, but it is not going away anytime soon. The current "this is OK in this state, but not OK one state over" set of rules that have governed Waymo and Cruise and even normal automakers for so long is simply not a viable long-term strategy.
As with a great many things in our country, from artificial intelligence to deepfake porn videos, technology moves faster than our regulatory oversight can. And again, Musk is right when he says that if car safety rules aren't state-by-state, then autonomy should not be regulated that way, either.
But then we must ask: What federal rules should govern those cars, and who should write them? Because under other circumstances, the vast array of crashes, mishaps and even deaths involving Tesla's Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems could face a tremendous crackdown based on their deeply troubling safety record.
Clearly, that would be anathema to Musk's plan to "solve" autonomy and turn Tesla into the trillion-dollar enterprise he has long promised it could be, something lucrative enough to power his other ventures and send him beyond the stars. If Musk can get a guy into the White House who can write those rules on his terms, or empower him to write them himself, what you're seeing in Pennsylvania right now is but a small price to pay. Just the cost of doing business, even.
This plan, of course, hinges on another persistent problem in Musk's life: reality. It's a big claim amid many other big claims that have not panned out, particularly around autonomy. And it hinges on Musk and Trump staying close partners should the latter retake the White House, and neither man has a particularly good track record with long-term alliances and friendships. That partnership feels all but destined to implode at some point.
But even if it does, this is still where all of Musk's money and efforts are going as of late. Think of it as one of his fights with the state of California, or the Federal Aviation Administration, or the Department of Transportation, just in a way where the things in his way can be disposed of permanently. And the thing is, it might just work.
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
