By Kit Norton
Tesla CEO Elon Musk might be focusing on the upcoming SpaceX initial public offering, but he announced Monday an updated time for the rollout of Tesla's autonomous robotaxi-taxi.
Musk spoke remotely at the Samson International Smart Mobility Summit in Tel Aviv early Monday, claiming that autonomous Tesla robo-taxis will "probably" be "widespread in the U.S. by the end of this year."
""I would be there in person but there's this IPO, we've got to get the SpaceX IPO going pretty soon, I think," Musk began the interview, signaling that SpaceX IPO news will hit the market soon.
However, Musk quickly turned his attention to Tesla.
"In terms of self-driving being ubiquitous? I think we're making steady progress," he said.
"We already have some vehicles operating with no people inside and no safety monitors in three cities in Texas and we probably will be widespread in the U.S. by the end of this year and hopefully in Israel too," Musk added.
Tesla is operating a limited amount of unsupervised robo-taxis in Dallas, Houston, and Austin, Texas.
The latest update on Tesla's plans to scale autonomous robo-taxis comes after Musk in April said they would probably be in "a dozen states or more later this year."
Musk has worked to position Tesla as an artificial-intelligence company in recent years, and repeatedly made bold claims about when the company will reach full autonomy.
Tesla stock declined 2.6% to $411.29 on Monday and has fallen 7% this year. The past few days, however, have been wild for Tesla shares.
The stock briefly traded above $450 and was looking to extend its third consecutive weekly gain. Then came Friday. Shares dropped 4.7% amid a broad market selloff, leaving them down 1.4% for the week.
Still, shares have been consistently above $400 for a few days, a level they haven't held consistently since early March. Expectations for approval to sell Full Self Driving in China appear to have catalyzed the recent rally.
Tesla's FSD can do most of the driving most of the time. Americans pay $99 a month, and Tesla has amassed 1.3 million subscribers.
"The world is going to have a lot of robots in the future," Musk said Monday.
"There are larger questions of meaning," he added. "How do we derive meaning in a world where AI and robots can do anything better than we can do because that is probably where we are headed. But I think people will still find ways to have meaning."
Write to Kit Norton at kit.norton@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 18, 2026 11:10 ET (15:10 GMT)
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