Tesla CEO Elon Musk appeared at the Italian “Atreju” political conference over the weekend, discussing a handful of themes such as artificial intelligence (AI), falling birth rates, immigration and more.
Musk was interviewed by il Giornale deputy editor Nicola Porro on Saturday after his appearance at the Brothers Party-hosted festival was confirmed earlier this week. The interview, as posted on X, touched on the potential risks and benefits of the emerging AI sector, as well as Musk’s hopes that the world will fix falling birth rates. Along with these themes, Porro asked about immigration and a handful of other subjects in the roughly 45-minute interview.
Appearing at first on the stage with his son X Æ A-12, or X, Musk later handed his son off to be taken backstage during the interview. The interview begins with a question about demographics, to which Musk responds emphasizing the importance of having children to create the next generation of humans, which he says poses a civilizational risk if not done.
Roughly halfway through the interview, Porro asks Musk some questions about AI, and while Musk briefly talks about the potential risks, he notes first and foremost the potential benefits of AI. According to Musk, the use of AI will ring in an age of abundance, though it will require some regulatory oversight to ensure that kind of outcome.
“I think we need to be careful with the advent of AI,” Musk said. “But it’s very much a double-edged sword. You can think of AI as a magic genie. Digital superintelligence will be capable of doing anything.”
Musk also said that he’s strongly in favor of having regulatory oversight on AI, just as we need that with anything that can be considered dangerous to humanity.
Despite being potentially dangerous, Musk emphasized his confidence that AI will be beneficial to humanity in the long run, explaining that it
“The good part of AI is that we’re headed for a future of abundance,” Musk added. “AI and robotics will mean there are no shortage of goods and services. If you can think of it, you can have it, basically.”
Musk went on to call the potential for AI “quite profound,” continuing comparisons to the sector as a magic genie. He notes that, in many stories with a magic genie, users must still be careful about what they wish for, even if it’s for additional wishes.
In addition to AI, Porro asked Musk about the issue of immigration, to which Musk said that he was a strong supporter of legal immigration and making it more accessible for people coming into countries who plan to add value to that country. When asked if he thought Italy would be a good place to invest, Musk said that it would, but he reiterated that the country needed to work on having kids so that its next generation would have people to work in its factories.
Musk later responded “Yes” to a post of showing his statement that, if civilization doesn’t grow, nothing else matters.
Yes
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2023
The interview is just the latest of Musk’s discussions on themes like AI, birth rates and immigration in a series of meetings with world leaders. In September, Musk spoke with Hungary President Katalin Novák about the world’s population collapse being one of today’s most important problems. He has also spoken about a range of related topics with world leaders, including Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Thailand Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and others this year alone.
You can watch the full interview between Niccola Porro and Elon Musk at the Italian Atreju conference below.
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Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Elon Musk
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, Mark Delaney of Goldman Sachs says.
Tesla is in the process of rolling out its Robotaxi platform to areas outside of Austin and the California Bay Area. It has plans to launch in five additional cities, including Houston, Dallas, Miami, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.
However, the company’s expansion is not what the focus needs to be, according to Delaney. It’s the speed of deployment.
The analyst said:
“We think the key focus from here will be how fast Tesla can scale driverless operations (including if Tesla’s approach to software/hardware allows it to scale significantly faster than competitors, as the company has argued), and on profitability.”
Profitability will come as the Robotaxi fleet expands. Making that money will be dependent on when Tesla can initiate rides in more areas, giving more customers access to the program.
There are some additional things that the company needs to make happen ahead of the major Robotaxi expansion, one of those things is launching driverless rides in Austin, the first city in which it launched the program.
This week, Tesla started testing driverless Robotaxi rides in Austin, as two different Model Y units were spotted with no occupants, a huge step in the company’s plans for the ride-sharing platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
CEO Elon Musk has been hoping to remove Safety Monitors from Robotaxis in Austin for several months, first mentioning the plan to have them out by the end of 2025 in September. He confirmed on Sunday that Tesla had officially removed vehicle occupants and started testing truly unsupervised rides.
Although Safety Monitors in Austin have been sitting in the passenger’s seat, they have still had the ability to override things in case of an emergency. After all, the ultimate goal was safety and avoiding any accidents or injuries.
Goldman Sachs reiterated its ‘Neutral’ rating and its $400 price target. Delaney said, “Tesla is making progress with its autonomous technology,” and recent developments make it evident that this is true.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets bold Robotaxi prediction from Wall Street firm
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) received a bold Robotaxi prediction from Morgan Stanley, which anticipates a dramatic increase in the size of the company’s autonomous ride-hailing suite in the coming years.
Last week, Andrew Percoco took over Tesla analysis for Morgan Stanley from Adam Jonas, who covered the stock for years. Percoco seems to be less optimistic and bullish on Tesla shares, while still being fair and balanced in his analysis.
Percoco dug into the Robotaxi fleet and its expansion in the coming years in his latest note, released on Tuesday. The firm expects Tesla to increase the Robotaxi fleet size to 1,000 vehicles in 2026. However, that’s small-scale compared to what they expect from Tesla in a decade.
Tesla expands Robotaxi app access once again, this time on a global scale
By 2035, Morgan Stanley believes there will be one million Robotaxis on the road across multiple cities, a major jump and a considerable fleet size. We assume this means the fleet of vehicles Tesla will operate internally, and not including passenger-owned vehicles that could be added through software updates.
He also listed three specific catalysts that investors should pay attention to, as these will represent the company being on track to achieve its Robotaxi dreams:
- Opening Robotaxi to the public without a Safety Monitor. Timing is unclear, but it appears that Tesla is getting closer by the day.
- Improvement in safety metrics without the Safety Monitor. Tesla’s ability to improve its safety metrics as it scales miles driven without the Safety Monitor is imperative as it looks to scale in new states and cities in 2026.
- Cybercab start of production, targeted for April 2026. Tesla’s Cybercab is a purpose-built vehicle (no steering wheel or pedals, only two seats) that is expected to be produced through its state-of-the-art unboxed manufacturing process, offering further cost reductions and thus accelerating adoption over time.
Robotaxi stands to be one of Tesla’s most significant revenue contributors, especially as the company plans to continue expanding its ride-hailing service across the world in the coming years.
Its current deployment strategy is controlled and conservative to avoid any drastic and potentially program-ruining incidents.
So far, the program, which is active in Austin and the California Bay Area, has been widely successful.
Tesla stock closes at all-time high on heels of Robotaxi progress
Tesla needs to come through on this one Robotaxi metric, analyst says
