Tesla (TSLA) stock surged 9.8% on Friday, clinching a weekly gain of 17.9% for the stock as several positive catalysts pushed the beleaguered name higher.
The latest positive headline for the company came late Thursday, when the Department of Transportation rolled out a new framework for self-driving car regulations, including “streamlining” some reporting requirements for cars equipped with automated or driver-assist systems.
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“This Administration understands that we’re in a race with China to out-innovate, and the stakes couldn’t be higher,” said Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.
“As part of DOT’s innovation agenda, our new framework will slash red tape and move us closer to a single national standard that spurs innovation and prioritizes safety,” Duffy added.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) also said in Thursday’s statement it would expand an existing program exempting some foreign-made autonomous vehicles from some review processes to accelerate testing to include US-made vehicles.
CEO Elon Musk said on the company’s earnings call this week that Tesla expects to be “selling fully autonomous rides in June in Austin, as we’ve been saying for now several months. So that’s continued.”
Musk added, “The future of the company is fundamentally based on large-scale autonomous cars and large-scale … numbers of autonomous humanoid robots. So the value of the company that makes truly useful autonomous humanoid robots and autonomous useful vehicles at scale at low cost, which is what Tesla is going to do, is staggering.”
Read more about Tesla’s stock moves and today’s market action.
Tesla stock was also getting a boost from a Bloomberg report that indicated the company could be close to entering the Indian market after some customers received a notice that their reservation deposit would be refunded.
On its earnings call earlier this week, Tesla said it’s been “very careful trying to figure out when is the right time” to enter the Indian market, given the current tariff structure would make Tesla’s cars about twice as expensive to sell.
Friday’s moves built on an already high-flying week for Tesla stock. Shares got their biggest boost earlier this week after Musk said during the company’s quarterly earnings call that he would be cutting back his time spent in the Trump administration “significantly.”
Musk’s involvement with the Trump administration, most notably his leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has weighed on the brand’s perception among some consumers, notably in Europe, as the company’s sales have flagged to start the year.
Noted Tesla bull Dan Ives said in a client note following Musk’s announcement that the move was “an off ramp for Musk out of the Trump White House in our view as the global brand damage, political firestorm, and perfect storm chaos over the past few months will now end this volatile political chapter for Musk and we expect minimal, if any time focused on DOGE going forward.”
“We saw a dialed in Musk on the conference call we have rarely seen in the past,” Ives added.
Tesla stock fell 50% from its record highs reached in December to its lows of the year. Even including this week’s rally, the stock remains down about 30% in 2025.
But this week’s flurry of news has pushed the stock back to its highest level in a month.
“The brand damage caused by Musk in the White House/DOGE over the past few months will not go away just by this move and some of the damage will be stained forever in Europe and the US (~10% future demand destruction we estimate),” Ives wrote.
“[But] this was the time to close one dark chapter and open a brighter one for the Tesla story with autonomous and robotics front and center.”
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