Tesla reportedly fired Omead Afshar, its head of North American and European operations, in June following a massive drop in European EV deliveries. Afshar, who joined Tesla in 2017, was just promoted to the position in November. The Wall Street Journal described Afshar as one of Musk's closest confidants at the company.

Musk told analysts that the service will be available to probably “half of the population of the U.S. by the end of the year — that’s at least our goal, subject to regulatory approvals.”

Many prospective buyers have been turned off by Musk’s foray into right-wing politics, and the competition has ramped up in key markets such as Europe and China.

The most common reaction to this plan has been that because many states, in particular California, require that companies get permits before deploying robotaxi services, that Tesla would need to get ...

The permit does not allow the company to run vehicles autonomously, the California Public Utilities Commission said.

Regulatory hurdles pose a challenge to Tesla as it must gain the trust of safety officials before launching fully autonomous services.