Musk devotes half of earnings calls to AI, robotics as car sales stall

A study of Tesla’s earnings call transcripts from 2019 onward reveals that Elon Musk now allocates almost one-half of his speaking time to artificial intelligence, robotaxi concepts and the Full Self-Driving system, a steep rise from the 15-20% share in 2022. Discussions of the Optimus humanoid robot have also surged, reaching roughly 10% of his remarks this year and nearly a third of his focus on the 2025 third-quarter call.

This pivot occurs as Tesla’s core car business has plateaued, prompting Musk to argue that investors should value the company for its autonomy ambitions rather than its vehicle sales. Other senior leaders, such as CFO Vaibhav Taneja and VP of engineering Lars Moravy, still devote about 30% of their comments to automotive matters, showing a slower transition. The findings were produced by one outlet in partnership with New York-based Hudson Labs, which used an AI-driven tool to label each sentence in the S&P Market Intelligence transcripts. The shift underscores Musk’s strategy to rebrand Tesla as an AI and robotics firm despite the majority of its revenue still coming from cars.