Tesla has reportedly sought to block journalists’ access to Austin's public records concerning the company’s plans to launch robotaxis in the city later this month. The EV maker announced in January that it aimed to launch an unsupervised Full Self-Driving (FSD) service in Austin this June.

Musk has staked Tesla’s future on self-driving vehicles he has promised for a decade but hasn’t delivered, making Austin's robotaxi launch closely watched as a potential milestone. Some analysts and investors attribute the majority of Tesla’s stock market value to hopes for robotaxis and humanoid robots it has yet to deliver.

Tesla is seeking to block the city of Austin from releasing records of its robotaxi trial after doing the same with FSD crash data requested by the NHTSA