Tesla investors welcome Elon Musk’s move to step back from Doge – US politics live (2025)

My colleagues Dan Sabbagh and Pjotr Sauer have more on Marco Rubio’s abrupt cancelation of his trip to London to discuss ending Russia’s war in Ukraine and the subsequent downgrading of the talks.

Ministerial-level Ukraine peace talks that were due to take place in London on Wednesday have been postponed at the last minute amid speculation that Russia is willing to change its position and after the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said he could not attend.

The UK Foreign Office indicated that ministerial-level meetings would be replaced by discussions at an official level – though initial public comments from the Kremlin suggested Moscow still opposed Nato countries sending peacekeepers to Ukraine.

The late downgrade came after reports apparently from Russia and the US suggesting the two countries had made progress in separate bilateral peace discussions between the White House and Kremlin.

Leaks to the Financial Times and other media indicate that Russia is willing to abandon its territorial claims to three Ukrainian regions it only partly occupies after three years of fighting in return for the US formally recognising the annexation of Crimea as part of a ceasefire agreement.

At present neither Russia nor the US has gone on the record to confirm the reports, though on Monday the US president, Donald Trump, said he would be providing “full detail” on the peace proposals “over the next three days”.

But a source familiar with Moscow’s thinking confirmed to the Guardian that Vladimir Putin had offered to freeze the conflict in Ukraine along the current frontlines during recent talks with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy.

However, the source cautioned that it remained unclear what other demands Putin might present – and cautioned that the apparent concession could be a tactic to draw Trump into accepting broader Russian terms.

Talks between the US, Ukraine and European officials to discuss ending Russia’s war in Ukraine faltered on Wednesday as US secretary of state Marco Rubio abruptly cancelled his trip to London and negotiations were downgraded, reports Reuters.

Rubio’s no show prompted a broader meeting of foreign ministers from Ukraine, the UK, France and Germany to be cancelled, although talks continued at a lower level. The US would now be represented by Ukraine envoy Gen Keith Kellogg.

The downgrading of the talks comes at a critical time, just days after president Donald Trump warned that Washington could walk away if there was no progress on a deal soon. Trump raised the pressure on Sunday when he said he hoped Moscow and Kyiv would make a deal this week to end the three-year war.

According to Reuters, a source close to the discussions said the downgrading of the trip came after Ukraine drafted a paper for the Europeans on Tuesday, in which it said there would be no discussions on territorial issues until “a full and unconditional ceasefire”.

The source told Reuters that the apparent US nervousness could indicate that the Ukrainian position did not align with what Washington’s representatives had agreed so far with the Russians.

Rubio spoke to the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, late on Tuesday and said he looked forward to rescheduling his trip in the coming months after Wednesday’s “technical meetings”.

Speaking on his arrival in London with the foreign and defense ministers, Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak said the talks would focus on ways to achieve a full and unconditional ceasefire as a first step to peace. “Despite everything, we will work for peace,” he said on social media.

The meeting is a follow-up to a similar session in Paris last week where US, Ukrainian and European officials discussed ways to move forward and narrow positions. During those talks, Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff presented a paper to the participants outlining proposals in which Ukraine in particular, but also Russia, would need to make concessions, according to three diplomats aware of the talks, Reuters reports.

Nato secretary general Mark Rutte will visit the US and meet the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the national security adviser, Mike Waltz, according to a media notice shared by the military alliance’s press office.

Rutte will visit the US on 24 and 25 April.

The veterans affairs department (VA) is ordering staff to report colleagues for instances of “anti-Christian bias” to a newly established taskforce, as part of Donald Trump’s push to reshape government policy on religious expression.

The VA secretary, Doug Collins, in an internal email seen by the Guardian, said the department had launched a taskforce to review the Joe Biden administration’s “treatment of Christians”.

“The VA taskforce now requests all VA employees to submit any instance of anti-Christian discrimination to Anti-ChristianBiasReporting.@va.gov,” the email reads. “Submissions should include sufficient identifiers such as names, dates, and locations.”

The email states that the department will review “all instances of anti-Christian bias” but that it is specifically seeking instances including “any informal policies, procedures, or unofficially understandings hostile to Christian views”.

In addition, the department is seeking “any adverse responses to requests for religious exemptions under the previous vaccine mandates” and “any retaliatory actions taken or threatened in response to abstaining from certain procedures or treatments (for example: abortion or hormone therapy)”.

Donald Trump signed an executive order within weeks of his second term aimed at ending the “anti-Christian weaponization of government”, and announced the formation of a taskforce, led by the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to end all forms of “anti-Christian targeting and discrimination” in the government.

Congressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a “national disgrace” during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.

“We stand firm with them in support of free speech,” the Louisiana congressman Troy Carter, who led the delegation, said during a press conference after the visits on Tuesday. “They are frightened, they’re concerned, they want to go home.”

Öztürk, a Tufts University PhD student, and Khalil, a graduate of Columbia, have been detained for more than a month since US immigration authorities took them into custody. Neither have been accused of criminal conduct and are being held in violation of their constitutional rights, members of the delegation said.

The delegation included representatives Carter, Bennie Thompson, Ayanna Pressley, Jim McGovern, Senator Ed Markey, and Alanah Odoms, the executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana. They visited the South Louisiana Ice processing center in Basile, where Öztürk is being held, and traveled to the central Louisiana Ice processing center in Jena to see Khalil.

They met with Öztürk and Khalil and others in Ice custody to conduct “real-time oversight” of a “rogue and lawless” administration, Pressley said.

Their detention comes as the Trump administration has staged an extraordinary crackdown on immigrants, illegally removing people from the country and seeking to detain and deport people for constitutionally protected free speech that it considers adverse to US foreign policy.

“It’s a national disgrace what is taking place,” Markey said. He added:

We stand right now at a turning point in American history. The constitution is being eroded by the Trump administration. We saw today here in these detention centers in Louisiana examples of how far [it] is willing to go.

McGovern described those being held as political prisoners. He said:

This is not about enforcing the law. This is moving us toward an authoritarian state.

US stock index futures leapt on Wednesday, after president Donald Trump backed off from his threats to fire the head of the Federal Reserve and raised hopes for a trade deal with China.

Shares of Tesla, meanwhile, rose 6.3% in premarket trading as the company kicked off magnificent seven – the group of technology stocks that has played a dominant role in the US stock market – earnings on a positive note.

According to Reuters, Tesla reported a profit for its core auto business that topped rock-bottom expectations.

Trump said on Tuesday he had “no intention” of firing Fed chair Jerome Powell, walking back from his comments that Powell’s termination could not come “fast enough” after heavy criticism in the past few days.

Hopes for trade negotiations between the US and China, which have been locked in an escalating tit-for-tat tariff war, also helped lift sentiment after Trump expressed optimism that a trade deal with the country could “substantially” lower tariffs on Chinese goods.

Markets welcomed Trump’s change in tone, with futures jumping in extended trade on Tuesday and recovering after the attacks on Fed’s Powell had rattled investors and sparked sharp losses in US assets, including stocks and the dollar, earlier in the week.

Although Trump backtracked on his statement to fire Powell, he reiterated that he wanted the Fed to be more active in lowering interest rates, reports Reuters. Powell said last week that the central bank will be cautious in easing policy given the lack of clarity on how sweeping changes to US trade rules will impact growth and inflation.

US vice-president JD Vance said on Wednesday that Moscow and Kyiv need to agree to exchange territory if they want to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“It’s now time, I think, to take, if not the final step, one of the final steps, which is, at a broad level, the party saying we’re going to stop the killing, we’re going to freeze the territorial lines at some level close to where they are today,” Vance told reporters during a visit to India.

“Now, of course, that means the Ukrainians and the Russians are both going to have to give up some of the territory they currently own,” he added.

The US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr on Tuesday called sugar “poison” and recommended that Americans eat “zero” added sugar in their food, while acknowledging that the federal government was unlikely to be able to eliminate it from products.

Kennedy, however, said that better labeling was needed for foods and that new government guidelines on nutrition would recommend people avoid sugar completely.

The health and human services secretary also announced plans to eliminate the last eight government-approved synthetic food dyes from the US food supply within two years.

Kennedy said at a press conference on Tuesday:

Sugar is poison and Americans need to know that it is poisoning us.

He added moments later:

I don’t think that we’re going to be able to eliminate sugar, but I think what we need to do, probably, is give Americans knowledge about how much sugar is in their products, and also, with the new nutrition guidelines, we’ll give them a very clear idea about how much sugar they should be using, which is zero.

The secretary said the public is under-informed about food.

Americans don’t know what they’re eating. We’re going to start informing Americans about what they’re eating.

Meanwhile, he did not talk about vaccines or vaccinations at the press conference, but it was reported by Politico, citing sources familiar with departmental discussions, that Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, was considering removing the Covid-19 shot from the official federal list of recommended inoculations for children.

David Cameron’s former top adviser Steve Hilton has joined the 2026 race for California governor, running as a Republican to replace the Democrats’ Gavin Newsom, who is prevented by law from seeking a third term.

Hilton, who hosted a show on Fox News for six years, launched his campaign with the theme “Golden Again: Great Jobs, Great Homes, Great Kids”. His campaign said Hilton would be “reinforcing his commitment to positive, practical solutions instead of today’s ideology and dogma”, and that his brand of “positive populism” would focus on helping working families.

Hilton was one of the then UK prime minister’s closest advisers before the pair fell out over immigration and Brexit in 2016. Hilton, a former advertising executive, is thought to have been largely responsible for a host of early Cameron measures and photo opportunities including the husky expedition to Alaska to popularise his “Vote Blue, Go Green” message.

At his campaign launch in Los Angeles, Hilton took aim at state Democrats over notoriously high state taxes, soaring home prices and “the destruction of the California dream.”

He said he would welcome running against the former vice-president Kamala Harris, a one-time California senator and attorney general who has not ruled out a run for the governorship.

Analysts attribute Tesla’s overall difficulties to a number of factors, but ultimately conclude Musk’s role in the White House has caused a branding crisis for Tesla. The company is at a major crossroads, analysts say, that will only be remedied if Musk leaves his role in Doge and returns to Tesla as CEO full-time.

In addition to a drop in sales, a 50% dip in share prices, existing Tesla owners are looking to sell their vehicles in droves, Teslas have been vandalized across the country and in response to ongoing protests of the automaker, the Vancouver International Auto show removed the electronic carmaker from its March lineup. The company also recalled 46,000 Cybertrucks – nearly all that had been sold.

Musk said that the drop in demand is due to the macro economic trends – not branding. “Tesla is not immune to the macro demand for cars,” Musk said. “When there is economic uncertainty, people generally want to pause on doing a major capital purchase like a car. Absent macro issues we don’t see any reduction in demand.”

Analysts are not convinced.

“If Musk leaves the White House there will be permanent brand damage … but Tesla will have its most important asset and strategic thinker back as full-time CEO to drive the vision and the long term story will not be altered,” read a Wedbush Securities analyst note. Wedbush remained bullish on the company’s chances of turning its financials around. “IF Musk chooses to stay with the Trump White House it could change the future of Tesla/brand damage will grow.”

The company declined to provide forward-looking guidance for the next quarter citing “shifting global trade policy on the automotive and energy supply chains”.

“While we are making prudent investments that will set up both our vehicle and energy businesses for growth, the rate of growth this year will depend on a variety of factors, including the rate of acceleration of our autonomy efforts, production ramp at our factories and the broader macroeconomic environment,” the earnings report reads. “We will revisit our 2025 guidance in our Q2 update.”

The company did warn, however, that “changing political sentiment” could meaningfully impact short-term demand for Tesla products.

Though Elon Musk has acknowledged there have been “rocky moments” of late, he remained optimistic about Tesla’s future.

“The future for Tesla is better than ever,” he said. “The value of the company is delivering sustainable abundance with our affordable AI-powered robots. If you say, what’s the ideal future that you can imagine, that’s what you’d want. You’d want abundance for all in a way that’s sustainable, that’s good for the environment. Basically this is a happy future, this is the happiest future you can imagine.”

That “happy future” includes the company’s plans for fully self-driving cars, said the billionaire CEO as he laid out an ambitious timeline for when he expects the vehicles to hit US roads in some cities – “by the end of the year”. Tesla has historically struggled to meet timelines Musk has publicly set for the launch of new products, especially when it comes to self-driving.

“The acid test is, can you go to sleep in your car and wake up in your destination and I’m confident that will be available in many cities in the US by the end of this year,” he said.

This would be on top of the Robotaxi service the company plans to roll out in June. “I predict that there will be millions of Teslas operating fully autonomously in the second half of next year,” Musk said.

Despite missing Wall Street expectations on the top and bottom line, initial analyst reactions are optimistic given many had significantly lowered their expectations after the company reported a massive dip in vehicle deliveries.

“Against the backdrop of catastrophic expectations, with everything from sales to margins projected to continue the slump, the less-than-bad numbers have been received as welcome news by Tesla investors,” said Thomas Monteiro, senior analyst at Investing.com.

Monteiro continued:

In a curious turn of events, it’s as if numbers show that even at the worst moment, Elon and the team’s operation can still bring a robust $19.3bn in revenue, with total revenue partly making up for the huge drop in auto revenue.

If this is the worst it gets for Tesla, then certainly there must be some upside for the stock once tailwinds, such as the highly awaited cheaper model and the Robotaxi, finally hit the market later this year.

The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, said he will start pulling back from his role at the so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) starting in May. Musk’s remarks came as the company reported a massive dip in both profits and revenues in the first quarter of 2025 amid backlash against his role in the White House.

Investors were relieved after Musk said he would scale back his government work and spend more time at Tesla, reported Reuters.

While the move is welcome one investor told the news agency, they added that it did not go far enough. Shawn Campbell, an adviser and investor at Camelthorn Investments who holds Tesla shares, told Reuters:

I think more attention by Musk on Tesla is a net positive for the stock, but to see a meaningful move in the stock we would need to see a headline more like ‘Musk to leave DOGE to refocus on Tesla’.

Tesla saw a 9% drop in revenue year over year in the first quarter of 2025. The company brought in $19.3bn in revenue, well below Wall Street expectations of $21.45bn. The company reported an earnings per share of 27 cents, also well under investor expectations of 43 cents in earnings per share.

Tesla profits also slid 71% to $409m compared with $1.39bn in net income the previous year.

The company suffered a 13% drop in vehicle deliveries, making it the company’s worst quarter since 2022. Tesla closed the quarter with 336,681 vehicles delivered.

“Starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to Doge will drop significantly,” Musk said on an investor call.

That said, he expects to spend one to two days a week continuing to do what he referred to as “critical work” at Doge “for as long as the president would like me to do so and as long as it is useful”.

More on this story in a moment, but first, here are some other developments:

• Donald Trump has said tariffs on goods from China will be reduced “substantially” but “won’t be zero”, after US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Trump placed import taxes of 145% on China, which countered with 125% tariffs on US goods, causing volatility in the stock market and concern about slowing global economic growth.

• Bessent has said that he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the US and China and that the high tariffs are unsustainable. “I do say China is going to be a slog in terms of the negotiations,” Bessent said, according to a transcript obtained by the Associated Press. “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable.”

• Trump’s tariffs have unleashed a “major negative shock” into the world economy, the International Monetary Fund has said, as it cut its forecasts for US, UK and global growth.

• Trump has said he has no plans to fire the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell. The president’s comment comes days after he called the central bank boss a “major loser” whose “termination cannot come fast enough”.

• The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, has announced a proposed reorganisation of the US state department as part of what he called an effort to reform it amid criticism from the Trump White House over the execution of US diplomacy.

• The embattled US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has defended his most recent use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive military operations, blaming fired Pentagon officials for orchestrating leaks against the Trump administration.

• The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, on has called sugar “poison” and recommended that Americans eat “zero” added sugar in their food. He acknowledged that the federal government was unlikely to be able to eliminate it from products, but said better labeling was needed for foods and that new government guidelines on nutrition would recommend people avoid sugar completely.

• Congressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a “national disgrace” during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.

• More than 150 presidents of US colleges and universities have signed a statement denouncing the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” with higher education – the strongest sign yet that US educational institutions are forming a unified front against the government’s extraordinary attack on their independence.