A wild Elon Musk in the White House could kill Trump's legacy

On the evening of August 12, Tesla (TSLA) CEO and X (formerly in most cases is often often called Twitter) owner Elon Musk hosted a virtually two-hour long "conversation" with former U.S. President and Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump on his social media platform.

The eclectic duo discussed a huge selection of political subject matters, including his failed assassination attempt, immigration, and electric vehicles, but one particular exchange raised some eyebrows.

Related: Trump and Musk's union-busting shaggy dog story wasn't funny to the UAW

Within the heat of a passionate discussion, Musk proposed a particular idea.

“I believe we want a government efficiency commission to assert like, ‘Hey, where are we spending money that’s sensible. Where is it not sensible?’” Musk suggested. “We must always live within our means.”

What became once a guideline may develop right into a reality if Trump is elected.

Elon in the House

Within the way forward for a speech on the Economic Club of New York on September 5, the former President and current Republican Presidential candidate followed up on Musk's promise and made it a campaign promise of his own.

“On the suggestion of Elon Musk, who has given me his complete and total endorsement […] I will create a government efficiency commission tasked with conducting a whole financial and performance audit of the total federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump said. “We must always do it. Can’t go on the manner we are now.”

Trump noted that such a commission may be in command of an "action plan to totally delay fraud and improper payments within six months” and that it'd save the country “trillions of bucks.”

The "Musk commission" became just one in all many tidbits in a speech that largely touched on Trump's economic policy.

Along with talking at length about tariffs and cryptocurrency, he also outlined proposals that encompass cutting back the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% on companies that make their products in the country and relaxing government regulations, including those regarding energy production.

A Company Man

Though Trump and Musk exchanged giggles and praise someday of their time together, the manner Elon has impacted the companies he has been fascinated with is no laughing matter, as his leadership style and attitude make reasonably the impact.

Take Tesla for example; it really is miles no secret that Elon Musk sees Tesla as more than only a car company.  Within the way forward for Tesla's second-quarter earnings call, the CEO reiterated that the company "has to be considered an AI robotics company."

"The worth of Tesla overwhelmingly is autonomy. These other things are, I believe, no way it really is relative to autonomy," he said.

"I recommend anyone who doesn't accept as true with that Tesla would sell vehicle autonomy seriously is infrequently going to hold Tesla stock. They should sell their Tesla stock. Within the event you accept as true with Tesla will sell autonomy, or not it really is best to buy Tesla stock. And all these other questions are in the noise."

The landmark Tesla product that Musk sees as its AI-powered Northstar is its misleadingly named "Full Self-Driving," a software product offered in Tesla cars that it sees as the lifeblood of its future robotaxis. Alternatively, the hype on the back of the tech wouldn't match real life.

Related: Tesla tech beloved by investors seems to work for a select few

Tesla is currently the topic of an investigation led by U.S. prosecutors into whether the electric automaker committed securities or wire fraud by misleading its customers and investors about the actual capabilities of its Autopilot feature.

Alternatively, in a July 2024 report, sources within Tesla revealed that the company manipulated the effectiveness of Full Self-Driving and Autopilot to work much more effectively with Musk and a cohort of other Musk-friendly influencers on the back of the wheel; leading them to just accept as true with that the system is virtually flawless.

The identical month, an examination of more than 200 crashes involving Teslas equipped with Autopilot and FSD by The Wall Side road Journal found that these crashes were as a results of the of the Tesla's overreliance on cameras and machine learning software.

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Though Tesla data experts train the cameras to identify objects like road signs, stopped cars, trucks, or animals, the foremost gaps where the software doesn't know the objects can put people in dangerous situations.

“The sort of things that are inclined to go wrong with these systems are things like it became not trained on the images of an over-turned double trailer - it just didn’t know what it became,” Phil Koopman, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, told the Journal.

“Someone would have clearly said ‘something big is in the midst of the road,’ alternatively the manner machine learning works is it trains on a bunch of examples. If it encounters something it doesn’t have a bunch of examples for, it really is miles in a position to haven't got any idea what’s going on.”

Other self reliant driving systems, akin to Waymo's, use LiDAR and radar sensors to scan the road ahead, even in dark, foggy, rainy, or other conditions which may blind a camera. Alternatively, Elon Musk has said that fitting such sensors  is "unnecessary" and that installing LiDAR on its cars may be like fitting it with a "whole bunch of pricey appendices."

Related: Analyst tries Tesla FSD again; others mull troubled EV startup

Alternatively, the choice to save cash is reflected in the 000 world, with real people. Now and again, those individuals are the sort you do not should position in a potentially dangerous situation.

On two separate occasions, Truist Securities Analyst William Stein put himself in the "driver's seat" to try Tesla's Full-Self Driving for himself.

In a note published on July 29, the analyst wrote that a special "Demo" mode of FSD, made the Tesla Model Y he and his teenage son rode in made tons of illegal and dangerous moves that "would have definitely resulted in an accident."

He said that the auto "accelerated through an intersection as the auto in front of us had handiest partly completed a right-turn," adding, "My quick intervention became absolutely required to lead away from an otherwise certain accident."

When Tesla released a new version of Full-Self Driving software, he and his son tried it again, which left his sixteen-year-old son "terrified."

He in most cases is often often called it a "fast fail," adding that it committed egregious driving infractions akin to making a left turn from a non-turning lane. On the identical time, the traffic light became red and veering into the middle of two lanes on a twisty road, adding that FSD at its current state is a chronic way from what Musk calls "solving autonomy" or having something in a position to being used in a robotaxi.

The Principle

In an appearance on Bloomberg Technology on August 15, Stein emphasized that the largest driver of Tesla's stock price is FSD, the upcoming robotaxi, and other AI projects.

"Well, I believe the speculation that FSD should work is vitally important to the stock, in my opinion. Best a couple of 0.33 of the stock's value is wrapped up in the automotive production and energy capture and storage businesses. About two-thirds of the stock are wrapped up in these AI projects," Stein told Bloomberg Technology.

"So he's got to reveal something at this Robotaxi day. He is already pushed out that day from August to October. But if we now have the supposition that Robotaxi will depend on FSD, then it really is solely not ready."

With the election nearly two months away and Tesla's hotly anticipated robotaxi event on October 10, time will tell if Elon Musk's attitude is worthy of a White House appointment.

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