Tesla drops 7% on self-driving competition, Musk OpenAI distractions

Tesla shares dropped 6% on Tuesday after Chinese rival BYD announced plans to develop autonomous vehicle technology with DeepSeek, and said it would offer its Autopilot-like system in nearly all of its new cars, adding to fears that Elon Musk’s company is falling behind the competition.

There’s also growing concerns surrounding Musk’s distractions outside of Tesla, after news surfaced that the world’s richest person is offering to lead an investor group in purchasing OpenAI, while he steps up his work with President Donald Trump’s White House.

Tesla’s stock price has slid for five straight days, falling close to 17% over that stretch to $328.50, and wiping out over $200 billion in market cap.

BYD, which has emerged as Tesla’s fiercest rival on the world stage, said on Monday that at least 21 of its new model vehicles will come equipped with its partially automated driving systems that include features for automatic parking and navigating on highways.

Tesla doesn’t yet offer a robotaxi and its EVs currently require a human driver to remain at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at any time. On Tesla’s earnings call last month, Musk said the company is aiming to launch “Unsupervised Full Self-Driving,” and a driverless rideshare service in Austin, Texas, in June. Alphabet’s Waymo already operates a robotaxi service in Austin as well as in parts of Phoenix, San Francisco.

“In our view, competition between Waymo, Tesla and a host of Chinese players is a key driver on the path to commercialization” of robotaxis,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note to clients after the BYD announcement. The firm recommends buying the stock and has a price target of $430.

Waymo said on Tuesday that it added 10 square miles of coverage to its robotaxi service in Los Angeles.

In a report on Tuesday, Oppenheimer analysts wrote that the “autonomy competition may limit [Tesla] profitability.” Even if Tesla meets its June 2025 timeline for driverless cars in Texas, the company is “one of several autonomous technology providers, suggesting competition on price and performance,” they wrote.

In addition to running Tesla, Musk is CEO of SpaceX, owns social media company X and is head of artificial intelligence startup xAI. He’s also spending significant time these days in Washington, D.C., running the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) as a special government employee, aiming to slash federal spending, personnel, regulations and even entire agencies.

Investors already concerned about Musk’s hefty commitments beyond his trillion-dollar EV company have more reason for trepidation after events that unfolded on Monday. Musk’s attorney, Marc Toberoff, confirmed to CNBC that Musk was leading a consortium of investors in a $97.4 billion bid for OpenAI.

Musk was among the founders of OpenAI in 2015, when the AI startup was created as a nonprofit research lab. Musk sought to have Tesla acquire OpenAI, and he later departed the organization’s board.

OpenAI has since commercialized numerous products, most notably ChatGPT. Co-founder and CEO Sam Altman is seeking to restructure OpenAI as a for-profit entity. Musk has sued OpenAI to prevent that transition, and started xAI as a direct competitor.

The Oppenheimer analysts wrote that, “While [Tesla] has shifted focus to being a Physical AI play, we view Elon Musk’s bid for Open AI as a distraction from [Tesla’s] challenges.”

Altman told employees in a memo on Tuesday that OpenAI’s board hasn’t received an official offer from Musk and reminded staffers that “Elon has a history of making claims that don’t hold up.” 

Later on Tuesday, Toberoff said in a statement that he emailed the bid for OpenAI on behalf of the Musk-led consortium a day earlier to OpenAI’s outside counsel William Savitt and Sarah Eddy “for transmission to their client.” Toberoff said the bid was “in the form of a detailed four-page letter” and was addressed to OpenAI’s board.

“Whether Sam Altman chose to provide or withhold this from OpenAI’s other Board members is outside of our control,” he wrote.

Oppenheimer’s analysts also highlighted the added risks associated with Musk’s extensive work with the Trump administration.

While Musk’s behavior “has fans in certain circles,” his public life “risks alienating consumers and employees as the Trump administration tests the limits of its power,” they wrote. For example, they referenced recent vehicle registration data that showed steep year-over-year declines in California and across several European markets.

Tesla and Musk didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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