Yes, Uber’s Stock Got Spooked by Elon’s Robotaxi Tease… Here’s Why That’s Overblown

Uber's been having a pretty solid year all things considered. The stock’s up 31%, outperforming the S&P and even its meme-stock copycat cousin Lyft (up 11%). And while global markets are ducking for cover from the endless stream of tariff bullets (thanks to round-two trade wars with China) Uber’s been oddly untouched. No supply chain issues. No exposure to export bans. Just moving people and Big Macs like clockwork.

On top of that, Bill Ackman just trimmed more of his Nike position and poured that cash into Uber. No matter what you think about his tweets (or that time he tried to save Howard Schultz’s presidential run like it was a distressed asset), the man made $2.6 billion shorting the market in 2020. If he’s buying Uber, it’s because he sees something big coming.

In short: everything was going just fine. Uber was finally winning the “profitability” argument, showing $654 million in free cash flow last quarter, and proving to investors it’s no longer the cash-burning startup that used to pay drivers more than customers. They even announced plans to buy back $7 billion worth of stock… a flex usually reserved for the Apples and Microsofts of the world.

But then… Elon happened. According to a Bloomberg report, Tesla’s planning to launch its long-awaited Robotaxi service in Austin on June 12. I’ll stress the word report, because there’s no press release. Just a whisper from an “unnamed source” and a half-baked tweet from Musk: “Testing self-driving Model Y cars (no one in driver’s seat) on Austin public streets with no incidents.” That tweet (from a man who also promised full self-driving by 2018, and brain chips by 2020) was enough to knock Uber’s stock down 5%, dragging it under its 21-day moving average. Lyft dropped 4% too. Then came Wedbush’s Scott Devitt, who downgraded Uber to a neutral and told clients to remember the phrase “gradually, then suddenly”... his version of saying, “Yeah, we’re all gonna die eventually… just not sure when.”

But here’s the thing: Uber’s not clueless. They’ve seen this robotaxi horror film before. They’ve already partnered with Waymo, Pony.ai, May Mobility, WeRide, Volkswagen’s Avride, and a few others. They’re live with robotaxis in Phoenix and Austin, and Atlanta’s next. Uber’s whole playbook is to become the default distribution platform for autonomous rides. They don’t care who builds the robot… they want to be the app it reports to.

So while Tesla’s trying to build the car and the app and the fleet and the whole damn universe, Uber’s focused on monetizing what they’ve already got: 150 million monthly active users, a finely-tuned routing engine, and regulators they already have on speed dial. On the other hand, Tesla’s never run a ride-hailing network. They haven’t proven their self-driving tech can legally (or safely) operate without a human backup in most major cities. And let’s be honest, if Elon had robotaxis truly ready to go in June, why wouldn’t he shout it from the rooftops instead of leaking it through Bloomberg? Also, Uber’s already printing cash. Tesla’s still burning it on software updates and Cybertruck recalls.

So yeah, the stock got dinged. But it’s up 31% on the year for a reason. Ackman isn’t buying this dip because he’s bored… he’s buying it because Uber’s built a business that works now, with optionality for the future.

PS: Nobody knows what’s going on right now. Not CNBC. Not your buddy who suddenly became a macro expert after watching two TikToks. Not even the Wall Street suits who pretend they’ve got it all figured out.

One minute, AI stocks are mooning. The next, a random shipping company with five employees in Delaware is up 300% by noon. It’s chaos. And trying to make sense of it with old-school strategies is like bringing a highlighter to a gunfight.

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Stock.News has positions in Uber, Apple, Microsoft, and Google.