Tesla CEO Elon Musk stated that the company would expand its robotaxi services to the San Francisco Bay area within “a month or two”, depending on regulatory approvals. He mentioned this via X, when a user called Tesla Owners Silicon Valley asked him about his plans for expansion.
Tesla launched its robotaxi for the first time last month, in Austin Texas. A rather modest launch was conducted with Tesla investors and social media influencers taking their first trip in the self-driving vehicle with a human observer in the passenger’s seat. Tesla also deployed safety monitors who can react to dangerous situations by hitting a kill switch. While other autonomous vehicle manufacturers also have safety monitors in their testing phase, Tesla is unique in deploying them during commercial service.
While some testers in Austin claimed their initial rides went “smoothly”, others showed driving issues and traffic problems in videos uploaded to social media.
READ: Elon Musk’s empire in trouble amid Donald Trump fallout? (July 8, 2025)
Commercializing autonomous vehicles has been more difficult than expected, with high costs, tight regulations and investigations forcing many, including General Motors’ Cruise unit, to shut down. Prior to Tesla’s robotaxi launch, Alphabet’s Waymo was the only company running driverless robotaxis charging fees from passengers.
Waymo, which has over 1500 vehicles, has been slowly and steadily expanding its services over the years. Waymo’s autonomous vehicle service is already available in San Francisco as well as other cities in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta. Musk has said Tesla will ramp up the service rapidly to other U.S. cities.
While Tesla faced minimal regulation in Texas, California tightly controls where and how firms can operate autonomous vehicles and requires testing data for permits. In California, Tesla would need a series of permits from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to operate a fully autonomous robotaxi service that charges customers. In March, the CPUC gave Tesla the first in a series of approvals required to eventually launch the service.
The expansion of autonomous vehicles is crucial to Tesla’s future, as the company faces challenges amid rising competition, and backlash against Musk’s political views. Much of the company’s trillion-dollar valuation hangs on Musk’s bet on robotaxis and humanoid robots that are powered by artificial intelligence.
Musk’s association with the Trump administration, his inflammatory views, and his role with the Department of Government Efficiency had already led to backlash against Tesla among a section of consumers. However, his connection with Trump has also inspired confidence in some investors, which changed with his public fallout with the president.
READ: Tesla launches robotaxi in Austin as Musk says company was ‘super paranoid’ about safety (June 23, 2025)
Musk and Trump had a falling out following the announcement of Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which Musk denounced as fiscally irresponsible. Since then, the two traded threats and accusations against each other, with Musk claiming Trump’s name appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files, and Trump threatening to strip Tesla and SpaceX of federal contracts and suggesting Musk go back to South Africa. Tesla shares reportedly fell on Monday after Musk said he’d launch a new political party, the America Party, and suggested a strategy of targeting a few key House and Senate seats in 2026.
Musk’s latest controversy involves his AI firm xAI’sc chatbot Grok. The chatbot reportedly responded to certain prompts with inflammatory responses, including references to Adolf Hitler. Screenshots published on social media show the chatbot saying the Nazi leader would be the best person to respond to alleged “anti-white hate.” xAI said on Wednesday it was working to remove any “inappropriate” posts.