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Downward DOGE

What's going on with Tesla's share price? It's complicated.

The EV company is facing headwinds from regulators and itself.

6/25/25 10:35AM

Tesla is currently down about 5% today. If that holds, it would be the famously volatile stock’s biggest drop since... the beginning of the month when CEO Elon Musk publicly fell out with President Donald Trump.

Despite what was mostly viewed as a successful robotaxi launch this weekend, which sent shares soaring, the stock is still down 20% this year.

There’s a lot going on right now that could be affecting Tesla’s price. Here are some major considerations:

Today the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association released official data showing that Tesla’s European sales fell for the fifth straight month in May. Sales were down 28% in May even while overall EV sales grew about the same amount. Tesla analysts unofficially knew about the drop earlier this month, but this is just the latest in a series of disappointing sales numbers.
Tesla blog Teslarati posted a video of the human safety driver, who sits in the front passenger seat during robotaxi rides, having to intervene in order to avoid a collision with a UPS truck. The presence of a Tesla employee in the vehicle undercuts the company’s autonomy assertions.
Google’s Waymo launched yesterday in Atlanta, its fifth major market. The size of Waymo’s operation dwarfs Tesla’s. And unlike Tesla’s robotaxi launch, there are no people in the Waymos and the service is open to the public.
It’s also not just Waymo charging into the self-driving space. Last week on a podcast, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “We have some new technology that could just do self-driving for standard cars way better than any current approach has worked.”
Business Insider reported that Tesla Model Ys used as robotaxis are getting hardware upgrades, which might undermine the idea that every Tesla is “capable of being a robotaxi.”
In France, regulators have asked Tesla to stop “deceptive” claims about its vehicles’ self-driving capabilities or face fines. Tesla, of course, has staked its future on autonomy.
The deadline is looming for Tesla’s long-promised and long-awaited “more affordable models,” and they’re nowhere to be seen. Despite Tesla’s autonomous ambitions, its regular vehicles still make up the vast majority of its revenue.

Jon Keegan3h

Apple poaches Meta’s chief legal officer

Just a day after Meta announced that it had hired away Apple’s user interface design lead, Apple has announced that it’s poached Jennifer Newstead, Meta’s chief legal officer, to become Apple’s new general counsel. Kate Adams, Apple’s general counsel since 2017, will be retiring late next year.

Apple also announced the retirement of Lisa Jackson, vice president for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, who will leave the company in late January 2026.

The flurry of high-level management changes at Apple happens amid fervent speculation that CEO Tim Cook may be retiring soon.

Apple announces executive transitions

Apple also announced the retirement of Lisa Jackson, vice president for Environment, Policy, and Social Initiatives, who will leave the company in late January 2026.

The flurry of high-level management changes at Apple happens amid fervent speculation that CEO Tim Cook may be retiring soon.

Jon Keegan6h

EU calls for bids to build “AI gigafactories” in 2026

The European Union wants to shore up its domestic AI infrastructure and reduce its dependence on American tech companies.

To further this goal, the bloc is planning on accepting bids to build EU-based “AI gigafactories,” according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

EU Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Henna Virkkunen announced that bids would begin in January or February, per the report.

As the AI arms race heats up, countries are racing to secure their own sovereign AI infrastructure, including building their own AI models that reflect their culture and language and offer control over cloud computing resources.

Europe is lagging behind the US and Asia in AI infrastructure. But it may be hard for the EU to fully break free of American tech — unlike the US and China, there is no European alternative for the powerful GPUs needed to train and run AI models. It’s very likely that any AI gigafactories in the EU will be filled with GPUs from Nvidia.

EU to Open Bidding for AI Gigafactories in Early 2026

EU Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Henna Virkkunen announced that bids would begin in January or February, per the report.

Jon Keegan9h

Google’s AI chip business could be a $900 billion boon for the company

Google may be sitting on a massive new business that it has yet to fully exploit.

Google’s custom tensor processing unit (TPU) AI chips have been getting a lot of attention recently, making the tech world wonder if there are other ways to power its AI dreams rather than just by using Nvidia’s GPUs.

Bloomberg spoke with analysts who estimate that, if it does decide to sell its chips to others, Google could capture 20% of the AI market, making it a $900 billion business. For comparison, Google Cloud pulled in $43.2 billion of revenue last year.

Even if Google just sticks with renting access to its TPUs, it will continue to drive down costs and increase margins as it ekes out performance improvements, such as the 30x improvement in power efficiency that the latest generation of TPUs has delivered for the company.

Alphabet’s AI Chips Are a Potential $900 Billion ‘Secret Sauce’

Rani Molla9h

OpenAI’s Sam Altman has explored bringing his feud with Tesla’s Elon Musk to space

Billionaires, they’re just like us: they want to bring their terrestrial beefs to outer space.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has explored buying or partnering with a rocket company to compete with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s SpaceX, The Wall Street Journal reports. The two billionaires have had numerous public feuds over the years that have played out in the courts and on social media. They also both lead AI companies that have insatiable needs for data centers and have publicly discussed building data centers in space.

Altman seems like he thinks this could be more than science fiction. He reportedly reached out to rocket maker Stoke Space to potentially make equity investments in the company to get a controlling stake, though the talks are no longer active, WSJ reports.

Or perhaps he just wanted a Sherwood bobblehead of himself.

Jon Keegan10h

Report: Meta to slash metaverse, VR spending by up to 30%

Four years after changing its name to reflect its focus on the loosely defined “metaverse,” Meta is planning deep cuts to the company’s money-losing virtual reality efforts, according to a report from Bloomberg.

Meta’s Reality Labs division, home to the teams working on metaverse products — which include Quest VR headsets, Horizon Worlds, and its Ray-Ban Meta glasses — has lost about $70 billion since the company started breaking out the unit in 2020.

The company has struggled to get consumers to buy into CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of working and playing in virtual reality worlds, like the company’s Horizon Worlds platform.

Investors seem to love the news of the pivot, as shares shot up as much as 5% in early trading.

Meta’s recent hiring spree of AI superstars from competitors for its Meta Superintelligence Labs shows that the company’s attention is now all in on AI.

Meta’s Zuckerberg Plans Deep Cuts for Metaverse Efforts