• AI is reshaping tech hiring, reducing demand for entry-level roles in favor of experienced talent.
• SignalFire data shows a 50% drop in entry-level Big Tech hiring since pre-pandemic times.
• Tech firms now prioritize mid-senior hires, valuing experience over youthful potential.

For decades, Silicon Valley thrived on a mythology of youth. Tech giants and startups hired young, hungry employees who were relatively inexperienced but could work every waking hour to write code and ship product.

This era of youthful dominance in tech hiring may be fading, and it's partly due to the rise of AI. That's according to a new report from SignalFire, a venture capital firm that uses data and technology to guide its investment decisions.

Youth no longer at the center

In the past, young graduates were seen as hungry, moldable, and cost-effective hires. But today, new grads face the steepest employment challenges the tech industry has seen in years. SignalFire's latest State of Talent report reveals that entry-level hiring in Big Tech is down more than 50% from pre-pandemic levels, and startups aren't far behind.

"Tech startups have long been synonymous with youth," said Heather Doshay, a partner and head of talent at SignalFire. "But today, our data shows that many of those same early career professionals are struggling to find a way in."

Startups are mostly focused on survival, cutting burn rates, and extending runway. That means fewer hands, more output, and a demand for autonomous doers. In short, they want experienced individual contributors who can hit the ground running, not entry-level hires who require more management time and training.

"With reduced headcount, every hire must be high ROI," Doshay added. "Right now, that points squarely to mid-senior level individual contributors — autonomous doers who deliver against immediate company needs."

AI: The catalyst for a hiring reset

AI isn't the sole cause of this generational hiring shift, but it's a major catalyst. Asher Bantock, head of research at SignalFire, noted that AI tools are increasingly automating the types of narrowly scoped tasks that were once assigned to junior developers.

"What's increasingly scarce is not keystrokes but discernment," he told me. Crafting effective AI prompts, debugging machine-generated code, and integrating tools at scale requires architectural thinking, skills honed through years of experience, not a college diploma.

Data from SignalFire's new report reveals this trend:

• At Big Tech companies, new grads now account for just 7% of hires, with new hires down 25% from 2023 and over 50% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
• At startups, new grads make up under 6% of hires, with new hires down 11% from 2023 and over 30% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
• The average age of technical hires has increased by three years since 2021.

Big Tech companies are now focusing their resources on mid- and senior-level engineers, particularly in roles related to machine learning and data science. Meanwhile, functions like recruiting, design, and product marketing are shrinking across the board, the data also shows.

The "experience paradox"

This AI-driven shift has created what SignalFire calls the "experience paradox." Companies want junior hires to come pre-trained (just like those AI models!).

But young candidates often struggle to gain experience without being given a chance. It's a classic Catch-22, especially in a job market where 37% of managers say they'd rather use AI than hire a Gen Z employee, according to SignalFire's data.

Even top computer science grads from elite universities are struggling. The share of these graduates landing roles at the "Magnificent Seven" (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA, and Tesla) has plummeted by more than half since 2022, according to SignalFire's report.

A cultural shift

This isn't just an economic or technical evolution, it's a cultural one. Where Silicon Valley once idolized youth, today's market prizes proven execution. Risk tolerance has dropped across the startup ecosystem, and with venture capital funding tightening, founders are hesitant to invest in long-term potential over short-term impact.

Interestingly, this has opened the door for more seasoned professionals. While C-suite hiring has also slowed, companies are increasingly turning to "fractional" roles — part-time CTOs, CMOs, and advisors — to access senior talent without inflating their burn rate, according to SignalFire.

More hustle than ever

For younger professionals, the path into tech now requires more creativity and hustle than ever. Bootcamps, freelancing, open-source contributions, and AI fluency are becoming critical entry points. Simply having a degree, even from a top school, is no longer enough.

For companies, the long-term risk of this shift is clear. Without reinvesting in early-career talent, the tech industry risks breaking its talent pipeline. While AI may temporarily reduce the need for junior hires, the future may still depend on building and training the next generation of technologists.

The mythology of youth in tech isn't dead, but in 2025, it's being rewritten.

• Waymo's robotaxis have been providing fully autonomous rides to the SF public since 2024.
• Tesla is gearing up to launch a robotaxi service in Austin, using its Full-Self Driving software.
• Tesla's FSD is good, but it made one mistake we just can't overlook.

The robotaxi race is speeding up.

Tesla is preparing to debut its autonomous ride-hailing service in Austin next month, and Alphabet's Waymo continues to expand throughout major US cities.

Under the hood of the Tesla and Waymo robotaxis are two key pieces of technology that the companies respectively call Full Self-Driving (FSD) and the Waymo Driver.

We (Business Insider's Lloyd Lee and Alistair Barr) tested both of these AI-powered drivers in San Francisco — and the results truly surprised us.

Given the positive experiences we've had with Waymo and Tesla's FSD, we expected the results of our not-so-scientific test to come down to minute details — maybe by how many times the AI-driver would hesitate or if it would make a curious lane change for no apparent reason.

That didn't happen. Instead, the Tesla made an egregious error that handed Waymo the clear win.

Here's how it went down.

The test

Our vehicles for the test included Waymo's Jaguar I-PACE SUVs and Barr's personal 2024 Tesla Model 3.

The Waymo robotaxis are equipped with the company's fifth-generation Waymo Driver and guided by five lidar sensors, six radars, and 29 cameras.

Barr's Tesla was equipped with Hardware 4 and FSD Supervised software v13.2.8. Tesla released a minor update to the software days after this test was conducted. The vehicle has eight external cameras.

It should be noted that this is not the same software Tesla plans to use in the robotaxis set to roll out this summer. The company said it plans to release FSD Unsupervised, a self-driving system that will not require a human behind the wheel. Nevertheless, we wanted to see how far Tesla's FSD had come since its beta rollout in 2020.

We couldn't compare Tesla and Waymo as a full-package robotaxi service. Tesla has yet to launch that product, so we focused only on the driving experience.

We started at San Francisco's iconic Twin Peaks viewpoint and ended at Chase Center. Depending on the route, that's about a 4- to 7-mile ride.

We chose these destinations for two reasons. One, it would take the cars through winding roads and both suburban and city landscapes. And two, there were a few ways to get to Chase Center from Twin Peaks, including the 280 highway.

Waymo's robotaxis can't take riders on the highway yet. Tesla can.

According to Google Maps, the highway is more time-efficient. For the Tesla, we went with the route the vehicle highlighted first. It pointed out the highway on the way back to Twin Peaks.

We took a Waymo around 8:30 a.m. on a Thursday and the Tesla afterward at around 10 a.m. The traffic conditions for both rides were light to moderate and not noticeably different.

Predictions

Our prediction was that the AI drivers' skills would be nearly neck-and-neck.

But in the spirit of competition, Lee predicted Waymo would deliver a smoother experience and a smarter driver, given the high-tech sensor stack the company relies on.

Barr went with Tesla. He said he'd driven hundreds of miles on FSD with two or three relatively minor interventions so far, and given this previous experience, Barr said he'd have no problem riding in the back seat of a Tesla robotaxi.

Waymo

Throughout our ride in the Waymo, we were impressed by the AI driver's ability to be safe but assertive.

The Waymo was not shy about making yellow lights, for example, but it never made maneuvers you wouldn't want a robot driver you're entrusting your life with to make.

One small but notable moment in our ride was when the Waymo stopped behind a car at a stop sign. To the right of us was an open lane.

For whatever reason, the Waymo saw that and decided to switch lanes, as if it was tired of waiting behind the other car. We found that a bit amusing because it seemed like such a human moment.

As human drivers, we might make choices like that because we get antsy waiting behind another car, even though we're not shaving more than a few seconds, if any, off of our commute.

Barr noted that the Waymo Driver can have moments of sass or attitude. It had an urgency, giving us the feeling that it somehow really cared that we got to the Chase Center in good time.

"It's got New York cab driver energy," Barr said, stealing a line from BI editor in chief Jamie Heller, who also took a Waymo during a trip to San Francisco earlier this year.

Sandy Karp, a spokesperson for Waymo, said the company doesn't have specific details on what happened in that moment but said that the Waymo Driver "is constantly planning its next move, including the optimal route to get its rider where they're going safely and efficiently."

"This planning can involve decisions like changing lanes when deemed favorable," she said.

Ultimately, though, the best litmus test for any robotaxi is when you stop noticing that you're in a robotaxi.

Outside those small but notable moments, we recorded footage for this story and chatted in comfort without feeling like we were on the edge of our seats.

Tesla

Tesla's FSD delivered a mostly smooth driving experience, and we think it deserves some props for doing so with a smaller and cheaper tech stack, i.e., only eight cameras.

FSD knew how to signal a lane change as it approached a large stalled vehicle taking up a lot of road room, and it didn't have any sudden moments of braking. Just a few years ago, Tesla owners were reporting issues of "phantom braking." We experienced none of that on our drive.

Tesla also handled highway driving flawlessly. Sure, the weather was clear and traffic was fairly light, but, as noted earlier, Waymo does not yet offer public rides on highways. The company is still testing.

However, Tesla FSD did make a few mistakes, including one critical error.

At the end of our drive at Chase Center, we assessed how Waymo and Tesla's systems performed. We both gave Waymo a slight edge, but were also impressed with the FSD system.

On our way back to Twin Peaks, Tesla highlighted a route that would take us on the highway — a route that Waymo cannot take. We kept Tesla FSD on for this trip while we continued recording.

San Francisco is known to have a lot of brightly marked, green bike lanes for cyclists. There was one moment during the trip back when the Tesla made a right turn onto a bike lane and continued to drive on it for a few seconds before it merged into the proper lane.

Then, as we approached the last half-mile of our ride, the Tesla, for an unknown reason, ran a red light.

The incident occurred at a fairly complex intersection that resembles a slip-lane intersection, but with a traffic light. The Waymo did not approach this intersection since it took a different route to get back to Twin Peaks.

The Tesla's console screen showed how the car detected the red light and came to a dutiful stop. Then, despite the traffic light not changing, the Tesla drove ahead.

We didn't come close to hitting any cars or humans on the street — Tesla's FSD is good at spotting such risks, and the main source of traffic coming across our path had been stopped by another traffic light. However, the vehicle slowly drove through this red light, which left us both somewhat shocked at the time.

Some Tesla drivers appeared to have reported similar issues in online forums and in videos that showed the vehicle recognizing the red light but driving ahead. One YouTuber showed how the Tesla first came to a stop at a red light and then continued driving before the light changed.

It's unclear how common this issue is. Tesla hasn't publicly addressed the problem.

A spokesperson for Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

At this point, we thought the winner was clear.

Verdict

Since Tesla's FSD made a critical error that would have landed an automatic fail during a driver's license test, we thought it was fair to give Waymo the win for this test.

The Tesla handled San Francisco's hilly and winding roads almost as flawlessly as Waymo.

We also think FSD's ability to handle routes that Waymo can't handle for now — in particular, the highway — would give Tesla a major upper hand.

In addition, when Lee tried on a different day to make the Waymo go through the same intersection where the Tesla blew the red light, the Waymo app appeared to do everything it could to avoid that intersection, even if it provided the quickest path to get to the destination, according to Google Maps.

A Waymo spokesperson did not provide a comment on what could've happened here.

Still, an error like running a red light cannot be overlooked when human lives are at stake. Consider that when Tesla rolls out its robotaxi service, a human driver will not be behind the wheel to quickly intervene if it makes an error.

For Tesla and Waymo, we expected to be on the lookout for small, almost negligible, mistakes or glitchy moments from the AI driver. We did not anticipate an error as glaring as running a red light.

Once Tesla launches its robotaxi service in more areas, we'll have to see how the pick-up and drop-off times compare.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that the company's generalized solution to self-driving is far superior to its competitors. The company has millions of cars already on the roads collecting massive amounts of real-world data. According to Musk, this will make FSD smarter and able to operate with only cameras.

With Tesla's robotaxi service set to launch in June with human passengers, we certainly hope so.

• Tesla plans to debut its robotaxi service in Austin next month.
• The company told a Morgan Stanley analyst that the launch is still a "go."
• The service, however, will be invite-only and have "plenty of tele-ops," an analyst said.

Tesla's robotaxi debut in Austin will be invite-only and have a lot of teleoperators, Morgan Stanley's Adam Jonas said.

During a recent visit to Tesla's Palo Alto office, the analyst got details on what the EV company's robotaxi launch will look like.

"Austin's a 'go' but fleet size will be low," Jonas wrote in a note published Friday. "Think 10 to 20 cars."

Tesla said in an April 22 earnings call that the "pilot launch" will have a limited fleet.

The analyst also wrote that the robotaxis will operate on public roads, that the service will be invite-only, and that there will be many teleoperators on hand.

"Public roads. Invite only. Plenty of tele-ops to ensure safety levels ("we can't screw up")," Jonas wrote. "Still waiting for a date."

In the context of robotaxis, teleoperators often mean that a remote employee can take some level of control of the vehicle, typically when the autonomous driver gets stuck.

That's different from how companies like Waymo or Zoox handle tricky driving scenarios.

While both companies have remote human workers on hand, an employee can never take control of the vehicle's steering or pedals.

When a vehicle gets stuck, the remote workers can either suggest a path to take or provide more information regarding the vehicle's environment so the autonomous driver can figure out how to get out of the situation.

One example Waymo published on YouTube included a scenario when an emergency vehicle blocks a robotaxi's path.

A remote worker will answer a question such as, "Is the emergency vehicle blocking all indicated lanes?" This will provide more environmental context for the autonomous driver to make a decision.

Remote-controlled cars

It's unclear how much control Tesla's teleoperators will have over the robotaxis for the Austin debut.

Business Insider's Grace Kay previously reported there had been discussion around using remote operators as safety drivers for the launch, citing two people familiar with the matter.

A job listing from Tesla for a software engineer on the "Teleoperation team" says that, as the company iterates on the AI that powers the cars and robots, it will "need the ability to access and control them remotely."

The autonomous driving community is debating how safe teleoperations are for a robotaxi service.

While there's an industry-wide consensus on the need for human operators to monitor robotaxis and help with rare edge cases, some industry experts argue that a vehicle that can be fully remotely controlled has safety pitfalls.

Ex-Waymo CEO John Krafcik, who is highly skeptical of Tesla's robotaxi proposition, previously told Business Insider that there are "safety risks" to teleoperations.

One study by a team of researchers at Coventry University's Centre for Future Transport and Cities found that even a 300- to 500-millisecond latency, or around half a second, can challenge a teleoperator's ability to control the vehicle even at slow speeds.

Jonas and a Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Tesla's highly anticipated robotaxi launch has seen a lot of delays.

CEO Elon Musk has said several times that full autonomy and robotaxis were around the corner, only for him to miss his own deadline.

In 2019, Musk said Tesla would have over 1 million robotaxis by the end of the following year. That never materialized.

"I always bite off more than I chew," he wrote in an X post in 2023, "then sit there with puffed out cheeks like a squirrel that ate too much."

• Tesla has announced that longtime Chipotle executive Jack Hartung will join the EV giant's board.
• Hartung served as CFO of the fast-food chain for 22 years before becoming president last year.
• Tesla's board has faced scrutiny over a report that it began searching for a new CEO to replace Elon Musk.

Tesla has tapped a veteran Chipotle executive to be the newest member of its board of directors.

Jack Hartung, who served as CFO of the Mexican fast-food chain for 22 years, will join Tesla's board in June, the automaker announced on Friday.

Hartung moved from CFO to president and chief strategy officer of Chipotle last year, following the departure of CEO Brian Niccol to lead Starbucks.

Tesla said he would retire from his executive role on June 1st but would remain a senior advisor to Chipotle.

Hartung will also be a member of the board's audit committee, Tesla said.

Hartung becomes the ninth member of Tesla's board, which is chaired by Robyn Denholm and also includes Elon Musk, his brother Kimbal, and Airbnb cofounder Joe Gebbia.

It comes as the board, which traditionally has played a low-key role in the running of the EV giant, faces growing scrutiny amid Tesla's difficult start to the year.

The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month that members of Tesla's board had contacted recruitment firms to begin the search for a new CEO to replace Musk.

Board chair Denholm and Musk both denied the accuracy of the story, which came as Tesla faces collapsing sales across the globe and a wave and protests and vandalism over Musk's work at DOGE.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment sent outside normal working hours.

• Elon Musk's America PAC is facing a class action lawsuit that alleges unpaid fees to canvassers.
• The PAC promised to pay a $47 fee to each petition signer and for each signature collected.
• This is the second legal challenge against America PAC's petition payment promises.

Elon Musk's America PAC is facing a class action lawsuit over its promise to pay petition signers and signature collectors.

Three plaintiffs from Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Nevada filed the lawsuit on May 8. It alleged that the billionaire-backed super PAC failed to compensate individuals who signed or referred others to sign a petition during President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign.

Musk's PAC initially promised to pay each registered voter in seven swing states who signed the PAC's "Petition in Favor of Free Speech and the Right to Bear Arms" $47, an amount that was later increased to $100 for Pennsylvania. The same reward was also promised for each successful referral of a registered voter in swing states who signed the petition, at $100 per signature, only in Pennsylvania.

According to the complaint filed in the Eastern District Court of Pennsylvania, Steven Reid worked as a canvasser for America PAC in Michigan and Georgia and referred "many voters" to sign the petition. But despite repeated attempts to collect payment, Reid was never compensated, according to the complaint, and estimates he is owed "several thousand dollars."

"Plaintiffs are in communication with numerous others who referred voters to sign the America PAC petition, who are likewise frustrated that they did not receive full payments for their referrals," the lawsuit alleged.

"There are expected to be more than 100 Class Members, and the amount in controversy is expected to exceed $5,000,000," the lawsuit added.

An attorney for Musk, representatives of Tesla, and the America PAC did not immediately respond to requests for comments.

This is the second legal challenge regarding America PAC's petition payment promise. A separate class-action suit filed on April 1 by an anonymous Pennsylvania man in Bucks County made similar claims, alleging that Musk's PAC owes him $20,000 for signature-gathering work.

"Plaintiff has repeatedly contacted Defendants, making multiple attempts to receive full payment for his referrals, but to no avail," the complaint said.

These payment pledges, made on Musk's own X account and through ads authorized by the America PAC, aren't the only instances in which the richest man in the world promised to pay individuals for participating in a political activity.

In Wisconsin's Supreme Court race, Musk also promised, through a social media post, to pay $1 million each to two Wisconsin electors who had already voted and attended his event. The post was made on March 27, before the poll closes by the end of April 1.

The candidate that Musk championed eventually lost the Wisconsin Supreme Court race.

Tesla has raised the ire of some of its customers, who are accusing the carmaker of misleading them. Until recently, it would not allow customers who leased its EVs to purchase them at the end of the lease. Instead, the leases stated that it "plan[s] to use those vehicles in the Tesla ride-hailing network."

Tesla instituted that policy for Model 3 leases starting in 2019 and later expanded it to the Model Y until changing the policy last November. But Tesla is not currently sitting on a fleet of several hundred thousand ex-lease autonomous Models 3 and Y, and as of today there exists no actual Tesla ride-hailing network.

Instead, it has been spiffing up the ex-lease cars with software updates and then selling them to new customers, according to Reuters. And that has made some former leasers a little unhappy that their old EVs weren't pressed into service making money for Tesla on an ongoing basis but rather just as a one-time transaction.

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The future of everything from smartphones, to military equipment, to electric vehicles hangs on 17 rare earth minerals and the magnets that they're made into. And China, the world's largest refiner and producer, is tightening its grip and threatening the US' largest automakers.

Over the last 30 years, China has methodically cornered the market on mining and refining rare earth minerals, which are used to produce a variety of common items like passenger vehicles and everyday electronics. In the wake of US President Donald Trump's increasingly aggressive trade war, China is leveraging its position as the world's largest producer, at the expense of the American auto industry.

"We're within 90 days of this becoming a critical problem for everybody," say Ambrose Conroy, founder of Seraph Consulting and a major investor in Democratic Republic of Congo mining operations.

According to analysts, more than 90 percent of the world's supply of those 17 elements at the bottom of the periodic table are mined, refined, and turned into rare earth magnets in China. After Trump announced tariffs of up to 145 percent on …

Read the full story at The Verge.

• Tesla Cybertrucks escorted President Trump through Doha after his arrival to Qatar.
• The President was also welcomed into the country by fighter jets.
• Trump arrived to Qatar on Wednesday as part of the first overseas trip of his second term.

At least two Tesla Cybertrucks led the way for President Donald Trump after his arrival in Qatar.

The bright red trucks — along with a red Audi — guided the president's usual motorcade through Doha. The vehicles appear to belong to the Lekhwiya, Qatar's special forces for internal security.

Elon Musk responded to a video of the motorcade on X and wrote "Cybertrucks escorting @POTUS!"

It's not Trump's first time being spotted with a Tesla. In March, he bought a red Model S sedan after Musk brought a selection of the EVs to the White House for a demonstration.

The president was escorted into the country by fighter jets and welcomed with a red carpet after landing. The visit took place after several news outlets reported on Qatar's plans to gift the president a luxury 747-8 jet, which Trump would make his new Air Force One.

Trump's arrival in Qatar is one of three stops on the first overseas trip of his second term. The trip is aimed at making business deals, along with addressing diplomatic issues like Iran's nuclear program and Israel's hostage crisis. Each of the Middle Eastern nations on his itinerary have also recently struck business deals with The Trump Organization.

Trump landed on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia, which the White House has said will invest $600 billion in the U.S. (though the actual amount could be much lower). On Wednesday, Qatar's state carrier Qatar Airways signed a deal to purchase 160 Boeing jets worth $200 billion. Trump is also expected to visit the United Arab Emirates during the trip.

"The Gulf Nations are at the forefront of creating a stable, peaceful, prosperous Middle East," Trump said.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and other prominent American CEOs attended a US-Saudi investment forum on Tuesday.

Tesla and the White House did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Slate Auto says more than 100,000 people have reserved one of its low-frills electric trucks.
• The ultracustomizable EVs are expected to start at about $25,000, with deliveries in late 2026.
• By comparison, the Cybertruck launch in 2019 nabbed 250,000 reservations in less than a week.

It's looking like the utilitarian Slate EV pickup truck has struck a chord.

The Michigan-based Slate Auto, backed by Jeff Bezos, says more than 100,000 people have reserved one of its low-frills electric trucks in the three weeks since it was unveiled.

Those numbers aren't bad, especially for a fledgling company with little brand awareness.

By comparison, Tesla's blockbuster Cybertruck launch in 2019 nabbed 250,000 reservations in less than a week (five years later, about 50,000 have been delivered, a March 20 recall filing said), and Rivian's CEO said his company pulled in more than 68,000 reservations in the first 24 hours after announcing the new R2 last year.

Slate's ultracustomizable electric trucks are expected to start at $25,000 for models that eschew such niceties as power windows, a radio, and an entertainment system. If applicable, electric vehicle tax credits could bring the final cost to below $20,000. Deliveries are expected to begin in late 2026.

Slate's more traditional, minimalist truck design, specs, and low price have some calling it the "anti-Cybertruck," and other automakers are also betting that car buyers are looking for something more practical — and affordable — than Tesla's sci-fi-inspired pickup.

Look no further than the new (and rather awkwardly named) ID. Every1, a $22,500 hatchback from Rivian and Volkswagen that aims to prove EVs can be both cheap and high-tech. It's expected to go on sale in Europe by 2027. The company hasn't said whether a US launch is planned.

"We would like to enable choice for customers but without such severe compromise in terms of the overall experience," Rivian's chief software officer, Wassym Bensaid, told Business Insider.

Tesla, meanwhile, is working on "more affordable" models of its cars, which it recently said are on track to be announced in the first half of this year.

While Slate's 100,000 reservations indicate healthy interest in the lower-cost pickup, it's important to note that refundable reservations often don't translate one-to-one into sales, and final pricing for Slate's truck has yet to be announced.

But CEO Chris Barman said last month that there are a lot of people out there like her who are nostalgic for a simpler way to haul themselves and their stuff around.

"My first car was a 1984 Ford Ranger pickup, with a five-speed manual, manual windows, and no air conditioning," Barman said. "It was basic transportation, but I loved the freedom it gave me to go places and do things."

• Tesla CEO Elon Musk said on Tuesday that he wants to bring robotaxis to Saudi Arabia.
• Uber is already making a robotaxi play in the Kingdom through a partnership with China's Pony.AI.
• Uber also owns Careem, the dominant rideshare app in the region.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he wants to bring robotaxis to Saudi Arabia, where Uber is already laying the groundwork to launch autonomous vehicles later this year.

At the US-Saudi Investment Forum on Tuesday, Musk made a big push for robotics in Saudi Arabia, including self-driving cars.

"Really you can think of future cars as being robots on four wheels, and I think it would be very exciting to have autonomous vehicles here in the Kingdom if you're amenable," Musk said to Abdullah Alswaha, Saudi's Minister of Communications and Information Technology.

Musk didn't provide any details or timeline for when that could happen.

Tesla has yet to launch its robotaxi service to the public anywhere in the world. The company has said it plans to launch a pilot of the service in Austin in June. Musk said the ramp-up for expansion afterward should be quick.

A Tesla spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

Saudi Arabian leaders have said they want autonomous vehicles to play a role in the country's broader Vision 2030 modernization plans, which aim to reduce the region's economic dependence on oil by making heavy investments in technology. The country last year released a regulatory framework around the adoption of self-driving cars.

Uber announced on May 6 that it plans to deploy robotaxis in the Kingdom sometime this year through its partnership with China's Pony.AI. The company hasn't specified a date.

Pony.AI's robotaxi ambitions in the US came to a screeching halt in 2022 after the Department of Motor Vehicles revoked its California permit, citing multiple driving violations. The startup continues to offer autonomous rides to the public in China.

A spokesperson for Pony.AI did not respond to a request for comment.

Saudi Arabia's Transport General Authority said Tuesday in a post on X that the agency had signed a memorandum of understanding with Uber to launch autonomous vehicles in the Kingdom. An MOU is not binding and simply signals an intent to collaborate.

"First autonomous vehicles expected to launch on the Uber platform with onboard safety operators in 2025," the Transport General Authority wrote.

Uber is already a sizable player in the Kingdom's rideshare market.

The company owns Careem, which is the go-to ride-hailing app in the Middle East, operating in 26 cities throughout the Kingdom. Uber also separately operates its ridesharing service in the region.

A spokesperson for Uber declined to comment. A spokesperson for Careem did not respond to a request for comment.

Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at [email protected] or Signal at lloydlee.07. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.

In one corner is the bespectacled tortoise, Bill Gates. In the other, the chainsaw-wielding hare, Elon Musk. Each has a very different idea about what it means to give back.

Gates plans to ramp up his foundation's charitable giving to causes like public health and education over the next two decades, whereas Musk has used the White House DOGE office to nearly halt the flow of US foreign aid spending in a blink and dismantle the US Agency for International Development, which he has called a "criminal organization."

To be sure, these billionaires have very different mandates — Musk to cut government spending, and Gates to eradicate preventable diseases and spend down his vast fortune. But as Gates opens up his wallet even more, he's also squaring off with Musk. Gates is using a prolonged road map compared with Musk's move-fast-and-break-things tech ethos that had him vowing to cut $2 trillion in government spending by employing methods from a startup playbook.

"Tech innovation works when a new widget disrupts the market for the old one," Michael Morris, a professor at the Columbia Business School, tells me in an email. "Development programs work best when there is continuity, steadiness, predictability, assurance." He says Gates' approach shows "maturity in thinking through the problem." That's a shift from when Gates was considered a sometimes combative and arrogant leader at Microsoft, even if he was heralded as a brilliant innovator. The Gates Foundation has been criticized, too, for lacking transparency and for some of its spending priorities. "These days Gates looks like a sage compared to Musk and compared to the administration," Morris says.

Gates last week announced plans to unwind the Gates Foundation in the next 20 years, bringing the philanthropic effort to a close sooner than expected. But instead of cutting spending, he's increasing it: The foundation plans to distribute $9 billion in 2026, and Gates hopes the foundation will double the $100 billion it has given away since its founding in 2000 and donate another $200 billion to public health and education causes by December 31, 2045.

Meanwhile, in a matter of days DOGE pulled the rug out from under the USAID earlier this year. Funding was first disrupted, leading to confusion and chaos, and now more than 80% of USAID's tens of billions of dollars in contractual commitments have been cut. Organizations across the world that depended on money from the US have been scrambling to try to carry out their missions, which include providing emergency food to malnourished kids and medication for HIV prevention and treatment.

President Donald Trump set Musk loose to curtail the federal government's spending and waste via DOGE. In a move that many constitutional scholars say went beyond the administration's authority by circumventing Congress, the administration focused on slashing costs now, regardless of the long-term impact on the world's most vulnerable people. Gates' plan is different: It shortens the initial foundation's closure timeline with the intent of solving problems more quickly and rendering itself obsolete.

Part of the stark contrast between Musk and Gates stems from their different approaches to "efficiency." With DOGE, Musk has embodied the chainsaw approach that tech startups worship — focusing on being lean and doing more with less under a founder-mode-style leader. That doesn't necessarily translate well in government: Management experts previously told me they viewed DOGE's rollout as "clumsy," "wrongheaded," and full of "political recklessness."

The Gates Foundation's idea of efficiency is to provide humanitarian aid by using the data-driven mentality of the tech industry alongside expertise from organizations that work directly with people in need. When it comes to giving back, Fatema Sumar, an adjunct lecturer in public policy at Harvard Kennedy School, says Gates' effort "is a replicable model of data-driven, country-aligned long-term philanthropy that others could follow, and so far, few do."

It's no coincidence that the influx of funding comes as governments pull back, and Gates paired his announcement with jabs at Musk. "He's the one who cut the USAID budget," Gates told The New York Times, saying Musk had put it "in the wood chipper." When the interviewer noted that Musk had attached himself to the Giving Pledge, a concept initiated by Gates and Warren Buffett 15 years ago to encourage wealthy people to donate the majority of their assets to charity, Gates said: "The Giving Pledge — an unusual aspect of it that you can wait until you die and still fulfill it. So who knows? He could go on to be a great philanthropist. In the meantime, the world's richest man has been involved in the deaths of the world's poorest children."

The two have been feuding over philanthropy for years. Walter Isaacson wrote in his biography of Musk that Gates visited Musk in 2022 and tried to convince him to give away more of his money. Musk told Gates that most philanthropy was "bullshit," and that Gates could do more for the climate if he invested in Tesla stock, which Gates had shorted. Musk later told Isaacson that Gates was "categorically insane."

Over the past 25 years, money from the Gates Foundation has helped reduce the spread of preventable diseases, including HIV and tuberculosis, worldwide. The foundation estimates it has saved 82 million lives. DOGE's vision is one in which the problems of other countries don't fall on the shoulders of the US. Researchers from Boston University estimated that tens of thousands of people may have already died from tuberculosis or AIDS since USAID funding was disrupted. Gates' fortune allows him to fill gaps left behind by the US government. "Much like Harvard's endowment empowers them to fight back on the attack on universities, Gates' endowment enables him to step in and provide some needed services that USAID had been providing," Morris says.

More money now rather than later is a more ambitious approach. Gates described to the Times how AI tools will bolster the foundation's goals to improve healthcare, education, and agriculture. "Given that I have these resources, what can we achieve? It makes a big difference to take the money and spend it now versus later," he said.

A century ago, the world's richest men gave birth to modern philanthropy by setting up charitable foundations that still exist, including the Rockefeller Foundation and two dozen organizations that bear Andrew Carnegie's name. Today's tech billionaires, the modern equivalent of the industrialist titans, have the opportunity to make an even bigger impact, thanks to rapid advances in medicine and technology — but few have. Gates himself has said that his foundation can't assume the philanthropic responsibilities of governments alone.

"Gates, like Carnegie and Rockefeller a century ago, defines an era," Sumar says. "But today's tech giants haven't matched yet his global ambition, and the world can't afford more people on the sidelines right now."

Amanda Hoover is a senior correspondent at Business Insider covering the tech industry. She writes about the biggest tech companies and trends.

• Tesla's rough start to the year has fuelled speculation over Elon Musk's future at the EV giant.
• Reports circulated that Musk could be replaced as CEO, though they were quickly quashed by Tesla.
• Analysts and investors told BI that Musk would be nearly impossible to replace, but one name stuck out.

Tesla has had a difficult start to the year, leaving some questioning whether Elon Musk is the right person to lead the EV giant.

In early May, The Wall Street Journal reported that members of Tesla's board had reached out to recruitment firms to begin the search for a new CEO.

The news came as the automaker faces a stock price slump and collapsing sales around the globe. Last month, Musk said he would step back from his role at DOGE, which has sparked a global wave of protests against the brand, to spend more time at Tesla.

Tesla's chair, Robyn Denholm, and Musk himself denied that the Journal's story was true, with Denholm saying that the board had total confidence in Musk's leadership.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

It's not the first time the question of who might succeed Musk, who is involved in multiple other companies, has come up.

During testimony in 2022 over the billionaire's disputed $55 billion pay package, Tesla board member James Murdoch said that Musk had identified a potential successor as CEO, although he did not say who it was.

Although Musk is unlikely to leave anytime soon, Tesla analysts and investors told Business Insider that he would be nearly impossible to replace, and the list of potential replacements is not long.

"He's a fabric that holds Tesla together and moves it forward. He's one of those people who can't be replaced," said Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management and a Tesla investor.

Munster said he was skeptical that Musk would ever entirely divorce himself from Tesla, which he has run since 2008, but estimated the stock could decline 25% or more if Musk departed.

Bradley Tusk, a venture capitalist and political strategist, told BI that Musk was the main reason Tesla's valuation was so much higher than other carmakers, making him "exceptionally important" to the company.

"Tesla's market cap, even after the decline, is still more than the next nine biggest automakers combined. And yet their sales are not even in the top 15," said Tusk.

"The only reason why Tesla has that is because of this faith in Elon, both from institutional and retail investors. Without him, they're just another car company," he said.

Who could step up?

Replacing the irreplaceable is a tall order — but Munster said any successor to Musk would likely come from within Tesla's own ranks, and take the top job with the billionaire's blessing.

"Culturally, it's hard for them to bring somebody over. Their whole DNA is about disrupting the standard," said Munster.

Seth Goldstein, an analyst at Morningstar, said prime candidates from within Tesla might include senior vice president of automotive, Tom Zhu, who played a key role in building the company's Chinese business, and CFO Vaibhav Taneja.

Another possible pick for the top job is Omead Afshar, Musk's former chief of staff.

The former biomedical engineering student and ski instructor is one of Musk's most loyal lieutenants and was picked to oversee construction of Tesla's Austin gigafactory, with former employees previously telling BI that Afshar acts as a "final boss" for anyone wanting to reach Musk.

Goldstein said that the lean, flat nature of Tesla's management structure allowed the division heads a lot of autonomy, meaning several of them could likely step up to run the automaker.

"What you see is that the division executives and the leaders have a lot of decision-making power to run things. It's almost like a good leadership training ground," he told BI.

Hard act to follow

The list of potential internal replacements at Tesla has become shorter in recent years, with the company seeing an exodus of top executives.

Veterans such as one-time CFO Zach Kirkhorn and energy chief Drew Baglino have all left the company, and battery director Vineet Mehta announced in early May that he would exit Tesla after 18 years.

Munster said that if Tesla were to look externally, the most likely candidate would be JB Straubel, the CEO of Redwood Materials and a current Tesla board member.

Straubel co-founded Tesla in 2004 and was the automaker's CTO until 2019, when he left to run battery recycling startup Redwood full-time.

"I could see that being a big win on the level that he knows Tesla. He's also probably the person who has the best working relationship with Elon," said Munster, whose firm Deepwater is an investor in Redwood.

"Elon and JB have something that's pretty special. And I think it's unique in Elon's orbit, the mutual respect that they have for each other," he added.

Tesla investor Ross Gerber, who has previously called for Musk to step down as CEO, also agrees that Straubel is the most likely option to fill the billionaire's shoes.

"He's the most suited to me. He's a cofounder, an investor, he runs a successful company, and if Tesla bought Redwood it would make sense for Tesla, and then he could come in and be CEO. That's the scenario that I think would be best for everybody," Gerber said in an interview with Bloomberg.

With a 13% stake in the company and a board packed with allies — including his brother Kimbal — the level of control Musk exerts over Tesla means any change in leadership would have to happen with his approval.

Munster said it was possible that Musk might eventually settle on a management structure that mirrors that of his other companies. X and SpaceX both have full-time CEOs who run day-to-day operations.

"I think from a future of Tesla perspective, a combination where JB is the CEO and Elon is the 'chief technoking' would be a big win," he said.

Goldstein said that a shake-up of Tesla's C-suite would be unlikely to change the day-to-day running of the company, but added that Tesla might take fewer big swings if Musk became less involved in running the automaker.

"I would question if Tesla would continue to take on initiatives as bold as they have. We may not see that level of bold decision-making if Musk stepped back," he said.

• Backlash to tariffs and other US policies has hit some of the biggest American brands.
• Some shoppers abroad are avoiding products like Coca-Cola and Jim Beam, given their ties to the US.
• Not all American brands have been affected to the same degree, however.

For some people abroad, a Jim Beam and Coke isn't going down as easily as it once did.

Companies that make some of the biggest American brands have noted different degrees of pain as some consumers overseas avoid their products in protest of President Donald Trump's trade war.

Globally, consumers are less likely to buy many major US brands than they were just a few months ago, survey data published late last month by Morning Consult found.

"This suggests that overseas consumers are uniquely singling out some American brands due to their country of origin," the report says.

US companies already face plenty of problems because of tariffs, mostly in the form of snarled supply chains and higher import costs. The backlash abroad points to another issue: What happens when a brand's connection with America starts becoming a liability instead of a selling point?

In Mexico, for instance, the share of customers who said they were "absolutely certain" to buy a Coca-Cola product in the near future fell from 40% in January to 28% in February before rebounding to 34% in April, according to Morning Consult data.

Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said that some Latino consumers in the United States and in Mexico pulled back on their purchases of the company's products during the first quarter after videos circulating on social media in February said, without evidence, that Coke had reported some of its own employees to US immigration authorities.

Quincey said that the videos were "completely false, but they impact the business" anyway.

McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski said during an earnings call last week that the fast-food chain didn't see a hit from diners abroad pulling back in results during the first quarter. But the chain did note an uptick in anti-American sentiment generally, he said, especially in Canada and Northern Europe.

"What we have seen in our survey work is that there has been an increase in people in various markets saying that they're going to be cutting back their purchase of American brands," Kempczinski said.

Since the start of the year, Japan-based Suntory Holdings has been bracing for a hit to Jim Beam and Maker's Mark, two American whiskey brands it owns.

Suntory expected that in 2025 American products would be "less accepted by those countries outside of the US because of first, tariffs and, second, emotion," CEO Takeshi Niinami told the Financial Times in February.

"We are closely monitoring developments and have taken actions to assess and plan for potential risks to our business across markets," a Suntory spokesperson told Business Insider, adding that the company has seen "demand picking up" for its American Whiskey brands so far in 2025.

Instead of buying products associated with the United States, foreign consumers could shift their spending to local brands. That's already happening in Canada, where shoppers are eschewing US products at grocery stores and other retailers in favor of Canadian-made equivalents.

"The risk for US brands is that consumers' growing antagonism toward the United States resulting from an onslaught of tariffs emanating from Washington will cause them to seek out alternative goods and services provided by local and foreign (non-U.S.) brands," Morning Consult wrote in its April report.

Not all big US brands that sell abroad are feeling the same pinch.

Tapestry, the company that makes luxury purses and other accessories under the Coach and Kate Spade New York brands, said on Thursday that it wasn't seeing any sales slowdown due to anti-American sentiment abroad.

Levi Strauss & Co., the jeans brand, said that its sales haven't been affected either.

CFO Harmit Singh said on an earnings call in April that "we're entrenched with the local consumers" in other countries. He added that in some international markets, Levi Strauss has been selling jeans for several decades.

"Right now, international business is fairly strong," Singh said.

Wednesday, May 14, 2025 — This story has been updated to include a comment from Suntory sent after publication.