TESLA SIDELIGHT NO. 2 UPDATE: Elon Musk interview tour reached CNBC after BBG earlier

The Austin fleet will start out with about 10 vehicles, geofenced to stay within the safest ares. And within years, Musk says, there will be millions around the country. Soon Tesla owners, he said, will be able to add their cars to the taxi fleet for additional income. BYD? "I don't really think about competitors. I just think about making the product as perfect as possible." Not true, he said, "that I'm a Nazi.' His infamous salute was not, he said, a Nazi salute, just a gesture every politicians do. Every cut made by DOGE, he said, was approved by a government agency. He repeated, programs proven to be life-saving, will be restored. In "only four months" DOGE has achieved $160 bln in savings, he went on, with savings accumulating year by year. "We're trying to go after every part of the budget," he said. The only parts of Tesla that matter for the future at autonomous cars and Optimus, the robut product line. For autos, Musk claimed "a major rebound." The interview was interrupted by a telephone call. After that he went on to described the 200,000 GPUs powering GROK, the A.I. assistant, with another 800,000 GPUs being assembled outside of Memphis for the world's largest A.I. training facility. He described the power output of China as 2.5 times that in the USA, heading for 4 times the capacity. He said the US still has the lead in "breakthrough innovation," a cultural feature that includes the ability "to question authority," something lacking in China. "We're in the Big Bang phase" at just the beginning of A.I. , he said. From now on, he said he plans to be back at the White House "for a few days every few weeks."