Musk says he’ll spend less time in Washington and more time running Tesla after its profit plunges

NEW YORK AP Elon Musk says he ll be spending less time in Washington slashing ruling body costs and more time running Tesla after his electric automobile company communicated a big drop in profits Musk commented on a conference call with analysts Tuesday that now that the major work of establishing Department of Authorities Efficiency is done that he will be allocating far more of my time to Tesla starting in May Musk declared he expects to spend a day or two per week on governing body matters for as long as the president would like me to do so Tesla struggled to sell vehicles as it faced angry protests over Musk s leadership of DOGE a jobs-cutting group that has divided the country The Austin Texas company broadcasted a drop in profits and a decline in revenue for the first quarter Investors wished to see him recommit to Tesla announced Wedbush Securities Dan Ives This is a big step in the right direction Investors sent Tesla shares up more than in after-hours trading although they are still down more than for the year The company reconfirmed that it expects to roll out a cheaper version of its best-selling bicycle the Model Y sport utility truck in the first half of this year It also stuck with its predictions that it will be able to launch a paid driverless robotaxi amenity in Austin Texas in June and have much of its fleet operating by itself next year There will be millions of Teslas operating autonomously in the second half of the year Musk declared in a conference call after the results were declared He later added about the personal use of autonomous vehicles Can you go to sleep in our cars and wake up at your destination I m confident that will be available in a great number of cities in the U S by the end of this year Auto analyst Sam Abuelsamid at Telemetry Insight stated he doubts Musk s predictions The system is not robust enough to operate unsupervised It still makes far to countless errors he commented It will suddenly make mistakes that will lead to a crash The planned rollout of the robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals comes as federal regulators still have open investigations into whether the system that Tesla hopes will allow cars to drive themselves is absolutely safe Tesla s driver-assistance hardware that can steer or stop a car but still requires humans to take over at any time its so-called Autopilot is being probed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for whether it alerts divers sufficiently when their attention wanders And the company s Full Self-Driving which is only partial self-driving and has drawn criticism for misleading drivers with the name has come under scrutiny for its tie to accidents in low-visibility conditions like when there is sun glare Another challenge to Tesla which once dominated the EV business It is facing fierce competition for the first time Earlier this year Chinese EV maker BYD publicized it had developed an electric battery that can charge within minutes And Tesla s European rivals have begun offering new models with advanced hardware that is making them real Tesla alternatives just as popular opinion has turned against Musk The Tesla CEO also alienated possible buyers in Europe by publicly supporting far-right politicians there Tesla reported Tuesday that quarterly profits fell by to to million or cents a share That s far below analyst estimates Tesla s revenue fell to billion in the January through March period also below Wall Street s forecast Tesla s gross margins a measure of earnings for each dollar of revenue fell to from Tesla has announced it will be hurt less by the Trump administration s tariffs than largest part U S car companies because it makes majority of its U S cars domestically But it won t be thoroughly unscathed It sources particular materials for its vehicles from abroad that will now face import taxes Tesla warned in announcing its results that tariffs will hit its resource storage business too While the current tariff landscape will have a relatively larger impact on our Force business compared to automotive the company disclosed we are taking actions to stabilize the business in the medium to long-term and focus on maintaining its fitness Retaliation from China will also hurt Tesla The company was forced earlier this month to stop taking orders from mainland customers for two models its Model S and Model X It makes the Model Y and Model for the Chinese realm at its factory in Shanghai The company s side business of selling regulatory credits to other automakers that fall short of emission standards boosted results for the quarter Tesla generated million from credit sales up from million a year ago The company generated billion in cash flow versus million a year earlier Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein revealed earlier reports of plunging sales that had tanked the stock made the quarterly results almost predictable They re not particularly surprising given that deliveries were down he revealed It was good to see positive cash flow