The Blubber

“If you read the news, it sounds like the world is ending,” Musk said during a company-wide meeting streamed on X late Thursday. He joked that he can’t walk past a TV without seeing footage of a Tesla on fire before taking aim at his critics. “I get it if you don’t want to buy our cars, but you don’t have to set them on fire. That seems a little extreme.”

Musk then revisited a familiar claim that Teslas will soon be capable of fully autonomous driving. Despite years of missed predictions—Musk himself recently called himself “the boy who cried wolf”—he again insisted that Teslas are just a software update away from self-driving capabilities, a promise he has made since at least 2016.

“What I’m saying is: hold on to your stock,” Musk told employees, pausing as the audience applauded during the meeting, which ran past 10 p.m. local time in Austin.

Tesla shares rose 1.8% to $240.48 early in Friday’s trading, though the stock remains far below its all-time high of $479.86 from December 17.

The vandalism Musk referenced is part of a broader backlash against his involvement in President Trump’s administration. Protesters have targeted Tesla showrooms, vehicles, and charging stations across the U.S. and Europe.

Tesla’s deliveries typically slow in the first quarter, but both sales and shipments have dropped sharply in key markets this year. Beyond political opposition, the decline has been exacerbated by a temporary production halt for Tesla’s best-selling Model Y as the company retools its assembly lines to produce a refreshed version.

“How are we doing on popularity? Well, we actually make the best-selling car on Earth, of any kind,” Musk said, referring to the Model Y.

Tesla has announced plans to launch new, lower-cost models in the first half of the year but has shared little detail about the vehicles.

The backlash against Musk has led Trump to organize a Tesla parade on the South Lawn of the White House, set for March 11. Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick appeared on Fox News this week, urging viewers to invest in Tesla stock, declaring, “It’ll never be this cheap again”—a comment that may have violated ethics rules.