Uber CEO on partnership with Tesla: Life is long, but we would love to ...

Elon Musk has rejected an offer from Uber, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has revealed. During a recent interview, he said that the tech billionaire has rejected the cab-hailing service’s offer to partner with Tesla on its robotaxi program. Khosrowshahi cited his conversations with Musk to claim that Tesla is planning to build its autonomous vehicle project alone. This means that in US cities like Austin, Uber and Waymo will be competing with Tesla when it launches. However, the Musk-owned EV maker has yet to confirm the same.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Khosrowshahi said: “I’ve had conversations with him at this point. They want to build it alone, so, to some extent in Austin, we and Waymo will be competing with Tesla when they launch. Life is long, but we would love to partner with them. What we bring is demand to the AV ecosystem when demand often is quite variable.”
Despite being Uber’s upcoming competition, Khosrowshahi expressed a willingness to partner with Tesla. He even noted that it would make “a lot of economic sense” for Uber to serve as a platform for Tesla drivers since the cab-hailing platform helps stabilise demand in the often-variable autonomous vehicle ecosystem.

According to the Bloomberg report, Tesla not partnering with Uber can help the company create competition for its rival in the autonomous vehicle market.
While Uber is set to launch autonomous rides with Waymo in Austin and Atlanta soon, Waymo also offers driverless rides through its separate app in other cities. This move by Tesla could impact Uber's ride volume growth and commission rates, the report claims.
Uber executives have also been focusing more time on discussing the company’s autonomous vehicle strategy during earnings calls and presentations Since 2023, Uber has forged over a dozen partnerships with manufacturers and invested in several self-driving technology companies.
Some Wall Street investors have also predicted concerns about the future of Uber as well as that of its rideshare competitor, Lyft’s business model, which currently relies on a large network of human drivers to quickly match with riders, the report adds.