Shares of the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla (TSLA) popped at the end of the trading week to conclude a multi-month consolidation.
TSLA closed the trading day at $395.94, up 7% on the day and about 12% on the week, hitting a price level last witnessed in January 2025.
The stock surge comes amid a proposal for the EV giant to invest in the artificial intelligence firm xAI. In a new Bloomberg interview, Tesla chair Robyn Denholm says the board would not issue a recommendation on the proposal, leaving the decision to investors.
“The xAI proposal is a shareholder proposal that has been put into the board. We value our shareholders’ input. And the reason why we have not put a recommendation is we want to hear from shareholders in terms of what their views are as to whether or not we should make an investment in xAI.
One thing I will say at the outset is there’s a lot of misunderstanding of AI in the marketplace. It is not one thing. It is a range of technologies. What Tesla is doing today with AI is quite different to what xAI does. xAI is working on fundamental areas in AI, but it’s also working on large language models. That’s not what Tesla is doing.”
xAI was launched by Musk in 2023 as a rival to OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google DeepMind, with the mission of building large language models and real-time AI systems. Its first product, Grok, is integrated into Musk’s social platform X. Unlike Tesla’s applied AI projects in full self-driving and robotics, xAI develops foundational models more akin to ChatGPT or Claude.
In March of this year, xAI acquired Musk’s social media platform X in a $45 billion all-stock deal.
Said Musk at the time,
“xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent. This combination will unlock immense potential by blending xAI’s advanced AI capability and expertise with X’s massive reach. The combined company will deliver smarter, more meaningful experiences to billions of people while staying true to our core mission of seeking truth and advancing knowledge. This will allow us to build a platform that doesn’t just reflect the world but actively accelerates human progress.”