Tesla stock pops 7% in premarket after report Trump wants to relax U.S. self-driving rules

Tesla shares jumped on Monday following a report that President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team are planning to make a federal framework to regulate self-driving vehicles a top priority for the U.S. Transport Department.

As of 8 a.m. ET, Tesla stock was up nearly 7% in U.S. premarket trading after the release of the Bloomberg News report, which cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

CNBC could not independently verify the report and has requested comment from the Trump team and from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a Transportation Department unit tasked to oversee self-driving technologies.

Musk was a central figure in the business world pushing for Trump’s return to the White House in the lead-up to this month’s elections. The tech billionaire now stands to benefit from the close relationship he has formed with the Republican politician, who previously served a first presidential term between 2017 and 2021.

Last week, Trump picked Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency — or “DOGE” for short — which he said would end government “bureaucracy,” relax “excess” regulations and cut “wasteful” expenditures.

A federal framework for regulating self-driving vehicles would be a major boon to Musk’s Tesla, which has been promising fully self-driving vehicles for several years but has so far failed to deliver a car capable of being driven autonomously without a human behind the wheel.

The long-term vision for Tesla is to produce a fleet of so-called “robotaxis,” autonomous vehicles that can drive people around without the need for human supervision.

Last month, Musk showed off Tesla’s long-awaited robotaxi — a concept car called the “Cybercab,” a $30,000 two-seater vehicle with no steering wheels or pedals.

Tesla has already been beaten to the punch in the robotaxi race by Google’s Waymo venture, which is among the few companies that have successfully launched self-driving cars on public roads.

Speaking during an event unveiling Tesla’s Cybercab and “Robovan” vehicles, Musk said he expects Tesla to have “unsupervised” Full Self-Driving technology up and running in Texas and California next year in the company’s Model 3 and Model Y electric vehicles.

Full Self-Driving, or FSD, is Tesla’s premium driver assistance system, currently available in a “supervised” version for Tesla electric vehicles. FSD currently requires a human driver at the wheel, ready to steer or brake at any time.

Trump’s transition team is reportedly looking for policy leaders for the Transportation Department to develop a federal regulatory framework for self-driving vehicles, according to Bloomberg.

They include Emil Michael, a former Uber executive, Republican Representatives Sam Graves of Missouri and Garret Graves of Louisiana, Bloomberg reported.