Tesla Stock Climbs Premarket: Elon Musk Says Cybercab Production Is Officially On, Touts AI Edge

• The stock is still down about 7% this week after Q1 results showed a massive jump in capex for its AI robotics and manufacturing initiatives.
• The new acquisition aligns with Tesla’s broader chip strategy, including plans to use Intel’s 14A process at its Austin Terafab AI complex.
• Investor Larry Goldberg suggested Atomic Semi as a possible acquisition target.

Shares of Tesla, Inc. (TSLA) rose about 0.8% in premarket trading on Friday after CEO Elon Musk shared a fresh glimpse of Cybercab’s production progress, while doubling down on the EV giant’s AI edge that is operating at scale. 

TSLA stock has declined about 7% so far this week after its first-quarter (Q1) results marked a massive jump in capex plans to partly drive its AI strategy.

Tesla Begins Cybercab Production At Giga Texas

Musk reshared on X a video from Tesla’s official handle early Friday, confirming that its autonomous robotaxi, Cybercab, has entered production at Gigafactory Texas.

“Purpose-built for autonomy. Cybercab in production now at Giga Texas,” the official handle said. The short promotional video showed driverless Cybercabs leaving the factory, along with other vehicles, on public roads.

Cybercab, which is a robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals, was first unveiled in 2024. It has already begun offering limited robotaxi services to a few users in Austin. Tesla reiterated on its recent earnings call that it will begin volume production for both the Cybercab and the Tesla Semi this year. 

Musk Pushes Tesla AI Edge

Musk said on X that Tesla’s AI systems are already operating at scale, in response to a post by Tesla AI engineer Yun-Ta Tsai that contrasted benchmark-focused research with practical deployment challenges.

“Tesla AI is where the rubber hits the road. ‘Make no mistakes’ is not just a meme joke for self-driving AI. Tesla AI saves lives every day, at large scale. No other AI team can yet make that claim,” Musk said.

Tsai had argued that many engineers spend years optimizing benchmarks. “A lot of AI engineers have spent their most productive years chasing benchmarks instead of solving useful cases they can relate to,” Tsai said. “If the car fails to take me home, then I simply fail at my job and can’t go home.”

Tesla Reveals Quiet $2B AI Hardware Bet

Separately, Tesla disclosed in its quarterly filing that it entered into an agreement this month to acquire an undisclosed AI hardware company for up to $2 billion in Tesla common stock and equity awards, with $1.8 billion contingent on service conditions and performance milestones tied to the successful deployment of the company’s technology.

The disclosure surfaced alongside Tesla’s plan to spend over $25 billion this year in capex as the company ramps up investment across AI infrastructure, factory automation, Optimus humanoid robots and autonomous-driving systems.

VC Floats Atomic Semi As Tesla Buy

Following the disclosure, Larry Goldberg, managing partner at VC firm Lumasenti, suggested semiconductor tools startup Atomic Semi as a possible acquisition candidate.

“Here’s my guess for the Tesla acquisition announced this morning: Atomic Semi,” Goldberg said on X. He noted that the company focuses on compact mini-fab tools that can shorten chip-development timelines.

“It’s not about high-volume production chips—it’s about slashing the time/cost to stand up a fab line and iterate prototypes in hours/days instead of months,” Goldberg said, adding that Atomic Semi’s capabilities align with Tesla’s goal of rapidly designing and refining custom silicon internally.

“That’s a huge accelerator for exactly what Tesla described as needing to ‘make a chip, test it, revise… without shipping wafers between sites,” Goldberg said. However, Tesla has not confirmed the acquisition target.

How Do Retail Traders Feel About TSLA?

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment slipped to ‘bullish’ from ‘extremely bullish’ levels after releasing its earnings report amid nearly a 400% surge in 24-hour message volumes.

So far this year, TSLA stock has lagged its “Magnificent Seven” peers, making it the group’s worst performer, with a 17% decline.

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