Elon Musk Spends Half His Time on Earnings Calls Talking Robots and AI

TechCrunch analyzed Tesla's quarterly earnings call transcripts since 2019 using Hudson Labs' Co-Analyst AI tool, which classified each sentence by topic. The data reveals that Elon Musk now discusses AI, robotaxis, and Full Self-Driving software for nearly 50% of his speaking time on these calls, a sharp rise from 2022 when those topics took up only 15-20% of his remarks. Musk has increasingly argued that autonomy justifies Tesla's valuation, stating in Q1 2024 that valuing Tesla solely as an auto company is the wrong framework. Robotics talk has also surged: after Tesla revealed its Optimus humanoid robot in 2021, Musk spent less than 2% of his time on it in 2022, but in the past year he has devoted at least 10% of his comments to it, peaking at nearly a third of his focus in Q3 2025. This shift coincides with stagnation in Tesla's core automotive business, leading Musk to now spend less than a third of his call time on cars and manufacturing, and less than 20% on that topic in Q3 2025. Other Tesla executives like CFO Vaibhav Taneja and engineering VP Lars Moravy have been slower to shift focus, still spending around 30% of their time on automotive topics, likely because AI and robotics efforts generate no real returns yet, though they still match Musk's optimistic rhetoric when discussing the future.