Tesla ships cars. They ship a lot of them. Nearly half a million units moved in the last quarter. And 70% of the company’s revenue comes from selling metal on four wheels. It looks like an automaker. It acts like an automaker when the check clears.
Elon Musk doesn’t want you to remember that.
He wants Tesla to be an AI and robotics firm. One where the car is just the vessel. For years, he has argued this point. Now, he’s living it. While Tesla’s core business hits speed bumps, Musk’s focus has drifted decisively toward the ghostly future. Optimus. Robotaxis. Full Self-Driving (FSD). These aren’t side projects anymore. They are the narrative.
To see exactly how this pivot happened, TechCrunch partnered with Hudson Labs. The New York-based financial research firm crunched seven years of earnings call transcripts from S&P Market Intelligence. Their tool, Co-Analyst, tagged every sentence. Then, they counted.
The result is a map of attention. And Musk’s focus is no longer on manufacturing.
The AI Shift: From 20% to 50%
Musk now discusses artificial intelligence, robotaxis, and Full Self- Driving software nearly half the time. Fifty percent. That is a massive swing. Back in 2022? He spent just 15% to 20%.
This isn’t random chatter. It’s valuation strategy. Musk has been clear about why this shift matters to shareholders.
“If you value Tesla as just an auto company – fundamentally, it’s the wrong framework.” — Elon Musk, Q1 2024 Earnings Call
He went further. He told investors that if they didn’t believe Tesla would solve autonomy, they shouldn’t buy the stock. It’s an all-or-nothing bet. And the data proves the bet is dominating his voice.
Optimus Takes Center Stage
Robotics talk has surged recently. Tesla introduced Optimus in 2021, but for the next year, it barely registered. Musk mentioned it 2% of the time or less. Boring. Marginal.
Not anymore.
In the last year, Optimus has claimed at least 10% of Musk’s remarks. On the Q3 2025 call, it grabbed nearly a third of the focus. It’s becoming the star. Meanwhile, the mundane reality of building cars is being sidelined. Musk now spends less than a third of earnings calls discussing the actual automotive business. Sometimes less than 20%.
Why the change? Timing. Tesla’s car sales growth has stalled. Competition is fierce. Legacy automakers are biting. Chinese entrants are swarming. The core business is suffering under the weight of market reality. So Musk talks about the escape route.
Executives Lag Behind (Until Recently)
Musk is not the only voice at Tesla. CFO Vaibhav Taneja and VP of Engineering Lars Moravy usually show up on these calls. They’ve been slower to embrace the pivot. For years, they dedicated nearly half their time to making and selling cars.
Even on recent calls, those execs still spent around 30% of their time on the automotive side. Their next biggest topics? AI and robotaxis. But they are lagging Musk. They aren’t yet generating the same return on investment. So they stay grounded in the present.
That changed in 2024. As car business troubles mounted, the execs had to shift. But they matched Musk’s rhetoric when they finally did step into the future.
“The path to amazing abundance is ever challenging and makes bold bets. Our progress will be nonlinear. The future is great.” — Vaibhav Taneja, Q2 Earnings Call
It sounds like hope. It sounds like faith. But looking at the transcripts, it also looks like survival. Tesla needs a story that doesn’t involve price cuts and margin compression. It needs a story about sentient metal and driverless nirvana.
Musk tells it. The others follow. The cars? They just keep coming off the line.
