CEO Elon Musk has had a busy year, to say the least. In the space of six months, he's aligned himself with President Donald Trump, gone to work for the U.S. government, and headed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — a Herculean set of tasks that would crush the average human.

But Tesla's troubles, though levered to Musk, may be deeper than Musk's distractions, such as politics, gaming, and colonizing Mars. A record fourth quarter delivery report in January seemed to indicate all was well with Tesla, but it doesn't tell the full story.

Musk's announcement comes hours after xAI debuted its latest flagship AI model, Grok 4. The 54-year-old discussed the recent innovation during a nearly hour-long livestream shared on xAI's X page, during which he did not mention the chatbot's integration into Tesla vehicles.