• The Tesla CEO said public rides are “tentatively” planned to begin on June 22, an early birthday present for an entrepreneur that has chased the dream of full self-driving for nearly a decade. Tesla may not have the lead over Waymo in the autonomous ride-hailing market right now, but it could quickly eclipse it thanks to a unique, high-risk approach.

The viral video of a Tesla driverless car cruising the streets of Austin lasted fewer than 10 seconds, but even that was enough to make grown men emotional.

Farzad Mesbahi jumped into his Cybertruck and sped downtown, hunting for a glimpse of a driverless Model Y Juniper. Clips of the vehicle—turning west onto James Street from South Congress Avenue—began circulating online just a day after Austin officially listed Elon Musk’s company as a technology tester.

While Mesbahi, himself a former Tesla employee, gave up after a half-hour in the heat, he agreed with many bulls that the day would prove historic.

“This has been part of the [investment] thesis for a really, really long time,” he later told a podcast, explaining why he livestreamed his search for the elusive black crossover with the word “Robotaxi” emblazoned on the door.

The widely-shared nine-second clip already has over 15 million views on Musk’s own X platform.

When asked by a fan “drooling over that one tiny clip” when public rides would start, the Tesla CEO also finally provided the first clear launch date.

“Tentatively June 22,” he wrote. “We are being super paranoid about safety, so the date could shift.”

But if it does end up being postponed, it likely won’t be by much. The first Tesla that drives itself from the factory to a customer’s house, Musk stated, would be June 28—coinciding with the entrepreneur’s 54th birthday (how far a drive that would be, he notably left out, since Teslas cannot recharge themselves).

Wedbush tech analyst praised Musk for shrewdly timing his “apology tour with Trump” so as not to grab headlines away from the Austin pilot launch or otherwise risk the rollout.

“We believe Tesla could reach a $2 trillion market cap by the end of 2026 in a bull case scenario,” wrote Ives on Wednesday. That would mean the stock price doubles in the next 18 months.

For years Tesla has claimed it was on the cusp of solving unsupervised full self-driving, or FSD. When the company first launched FSD in late 2016 using a staged video it has since taken down, Tesla claimed the technology was already there—all it needed was to validate the software.