Tesla (TSLA) stock rose as much as 2% in premarket trade on Wednesday after CEO Elon Musk said overnight he regretted some of the comments made about President Trump last week amid their public fallout that saw more than $150 billion taken off Tesla’s market cap.
“I regret some of my posts about President Trump last week,” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, early Wednesday morning. “They went too far.”
The contrition comes after the recent war of words between the two sank Tesla stock late last week; shares have gained nearly 20% since Friday’s lows.
Musk slammed Trump’s GOP-backed spending bill last week, prompting fiery responses from the president and raising concerns over the political risk now tied to the EV maker due to the actions of its chief executive.
Trump also appeared to soften his view on Musk somewhat earlier this week, saying “I’d have no problem with it” when asked if he would be willing to speak with Musk. “I’d imagine he wants to speak with me,” Trump said.
Tesla’s move higher early Wednesday also comes after Musk offered an updated start date to the company’s highly-anticipated robotaxi tests.
Musk said late Tuesday the first public rides in Tesla robotaxis would begin June 22. Musk added that the “[first] Tesla that drives itself from factory end of line all the way to a customer house is June 28.”
The company had been targeting a June 12 launch date. Musk said Tuesday the company was being “super paranoid” about safety, so the date could shift later again.
Tesla also confirmed a report on X on Tuesday that its robotaxis were already doing preliminary testing in Austin, with a Model Y with “Robotaxi” emblazoned on the side of it closely followed by another Model Y chase vehicle.
On Monday, Tesla was listed as an autonomous vehicle (AV) operator on Austin’s Transportation and Public Works website. Tesla will begin its unsupervised robotaxi testing with approximately 10 to 20 robotaxis at first and will ramp up if testing goes smoothly.
Tesla plans to use remote tele-operators in the event that a robotaxi has an incident or is stuck in a traffic situation, allowing human intervention when needed.
Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on X and on Instagram.
