NEW YORK (AP) — Elon Musk says he’ll be spending less time in Washington slashing government costs and more time running Tesla after his electric vehicle company reported a big drop in profits.

Musk said on a conference call with analysts Tuesday that “now that the major work of establishing Department of Government Efficiency is done,” that he will be “allocating far more of my time to Tesla” starting in May. Musk said he now expects to spend just “a day or two per week on government matters”

Tesla struggled to sell vehicles as it faced angry protests over Musk’s leadership of DOGE, a jobs-cutting group that has divided the country. The Austin, Texas, company reported a 71% drop in profits and a 9% decline in revenue for the first quarter.

“Investors wanted to see him recommit to Tesla,” said Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives. “This is a big step in the right direction.”

Investors sent Tesla shares up more than 5% in after-hours trading, although they are still down more than 40% for the year.

The company reconfirmed that it expects to roll out a cheaper version of its best-selling vehicle, the Model Y sport utility vehicle, in the first half of this year. It also stuck with its predictions that it will be able to launch a paid driverless robotaxi service in Austin in June and have much of its fleet operating by itself next year.

“There will be millions of Teslas operating autonomously in the second half of the year,” Musk said in a conference call after the results were announced. He later added about the personal use of autonomous vehicles, “Can you go to sleep in our cars and wake up at your destination? I’m confident that will be available in many cities in the U.S. by the end of this year.”

Auto analyst Sam Abuelsamid at Telemetry Insight said he doubts Musk’s predictions.

“The system is not robust enough to operate unsupervised. It still makes far too many errors,” he said. “It will suddenly make mistakes that will lead to a crash.”

The planned rollout of the robotaxi without a steering wheel or pedals comes as federal regulators still have open investigations into whether the technology that Tesla hopes will allow cars to drive themselves is completely safe.

Tesla’s driver-assistance technology that can steer or stop a car but still requires humans to take over at any time — its so-called Autopilot — is being probed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for whether it alerts drivers sufficiently when their attention wanders. And the company’s Full Self-Driving, which is only partial self-driving and has drawn criticism for misleading drivers with the name, has come under scrutiny for its tie to accidents in low-visibility conditions like when there is sun glare.

Another challenge to Tesla, which once dominated the EV business: It is facing fierce competition for the first time.

Earlier this year, Chinese EV maker BYD announced it had developed an electric battery that can charge within minutes. And Tesla’s European rivals have begun offering new models with advanced technology that is making them real Tesla alternatives just as popular opinion has turned against Musk. The Tesla CEO has alienated potential buyers in Europe by publicly supporting far-right politicians there.

Tesla said Tuesday that quarterly profits fell from $1.39 billion to $409 million, or 12 cents a share. That’s far below analyst estimates. Tesla’s revenue fell from $21.3 billion to $19.3 billion in the January through March period, also below Wall Street’s forecast. Tesla’s gross margins, a measure of earnings for each dollar of revenue, fell from 17.4% to 16.3% .

Tesla has said it will be hurt less by the Trump administration’s tariffs than most U.S. car companies because it makes most of its U.S. cars domestically. But it won’t be completely unscathed. It sources some materials for its vehicles from abroad that will now face import taxes.

Tesla warned in announcing its results that tariffs will hit its energy storage business, too.

Retaliation from China will also hurt Tesla. The company was forced earlier this month to stop taking orders from mainland customers for two models, its Model S and Model X. It makes the Model Y and Model 3 for the Chinese market at its factory in Shanghai.

The company’s side business of selling “regulatory credits” to other automakers that fall short of emission standards boosted results for the quarter.

Tesla generated $595 million from credit sales, up from $442 million a year ago.

The company generated $2.2 billion in cash flow versus $242 million a year earlier.

Morningstar analyst Seth Goldstein said earlier reports of plunging sales that had tanked the stock made the quarterly results almost predictable.

“They’re not particularly surprising given that deliveries were down,” he said. “It was good to see positive cash flow.”

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis died on Easter Monday at the age of 88. Here are the key things to know about the death of the Argentine pontiff, history’s first from Latin America, who presided over the Catholic Church for more than 12 years.

The timing and cause of Pope Francis’ death

Francis died Monday morning at the Domus Santa Marta hotel where he lived at the Vatican. His death came almost a month after he returned to the Vatican after being hospitalized for double pneumonia. The Vatican said that Francis suffered a stroke that led to a coma and caused his heart to fail.

On Tuesday the Vatican released its first images showing him in a wooden casket, in red vestments and his bishop’s miter, with the Vatican secretary of state praying over him in the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta. It also announced that the funeral will be held on Saturday at 10 a.m. in St. Peter’s Square.

In his will, Francis asked to be buried in a simple underground tomb at St. Mary Major Basilica, home to Francis’ favorite icon of the Virgin Mary, to whom he was particularly devoted.

A final farewell on Easter Sunday

Francis made his final public appearance on Easter Sunday, a day before his death. He appeared very frail, and delegated the celebration of the Easter Mass to a cardinal. But though his voice was weak, he blessed a crowd of faithful from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Francis also made a surprise ride in the square in his popemobile, drawing wild cheers and applause.

Beforehand, he met briefly with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who later said that Francis was “obviously very ill.”

Reactions and global mourning

Catholics worldwide mourned him from his native Argentina to the Philippines and across Rome as messages of tribute poured in from across the world.

Catholic and non-Catholic leaders alike honored a spiritual leader who was a voice for the marginalized and the weak, for migrants and LGBTQ+ people, and for environmental protection.

Representatives of other religions and other Christian denominations also praised him for seeking dialogue.

The pope’s recent illness

Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli hospital in Rome on Feb. 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his papacy.

For the faithful, those were weeks of fear that his illness could be fatal or lead to another papal resignation like that of Pope Benedict XVI, a surprise move that led to the election of Francis in March 2013.

The pontiff’s return to the Vatican on March 23 brought relief to many.

Mourning, funeral and then a conclave

Francis’ death set off the process of allowing the faithful to pay their final respects, first for Vatican officials in the Santa Marta chapel and then in St. Peter’s for the general public.

A precise sequence of events will include the confirmation of death in the pontiff’s home, the transfer of the coffin to St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing on Wednesday, and Saturday’s funeral Mass and burial.

After the funeral, there are nine days of official mourning, known as the “novendiali.”

During this period, cardinals arrive in Rome to participate in a conclave to elect the next pope.

To give everyone time to assemble, the conclave must begin 15-20 days after the “sede vacante” — a Latin term meaning the seat is vacant — is declared, although it can start sooner if the cardinals agree.

The cardinals will vote in secret sessions, and the ballots will be burned in a special stove after each session.

Black smoke will indicate that no pope has been elected, while white smoke will indicate that the cardinals have chosen the next head of the Catholic Church.

Pope’s record on Ukraine

Francis tried to maintain the Vatican’s traditional diplomatic neutrality when it came to Ukraine, and that led to criticism for what some called an unclear position on Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.

He at times expressed apparent sympathy with Russia’s rationale for invading Ukraine — like when he said NATO was “barking at Russia’s door” with its eastward enlargement. And last year he called on Ukraine to show the “courage” to negotiate peace.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in a condolence message praised Francis as a “consistent defender of the high values of humanism and justice.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country was grieving and recalled how the pope often prayed for peace in Ukraine.

Legacy on clergy sex abuse

Francis also had critics who argued that he failed to bring justice to victims of clergy sex abuse or to bring the needed reforms to the church.

“In this realm, where Francis had supreme power, he refused to make the necessary changes. This choice is having devastating consequences for the Church’s most powerless members. It will forever tarnish the legacy of this remarkable man,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a United States-based watchdog.

The Women’s Ordination Conference also lamented Francis’ unwillingness to push for the ordination of women. “This made him a complicated, frustrating and sometimes heart-breaking figure for many women,” it said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will swoop past a small asteroid this weekend as it makes its way to an even bigger prize: the unexplored swarms of asteroids out near Jupiter.

It will be the second asteroid encounter for Lucy, launched in 2021 on a quest that will take it to 11 space rocks. The close approaches should help scientists better understand our early solar system when planets were forming; asteroids are the ancient leftovers.

The upcoming flyby is a dress rehearsal for 2027 when Lucy reaches its first so-called Trojan asteroid near Jupiter.

Cranking up its three science instruments, the spacecraft on Sunday will observe the harmless asteroid known as Donaldjohanson. The encounter will take place 139 million miles (223 million kilometers) from Earth in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, so far away it will take 12 minutes for each bit of data to reach flight controllers in Colorado.

The paleontologist for whom the asteroid is named plans to be at spacecraft builder and operator Lockheed Martin’s Mission Control for all the action. He discovered the fossil Lucy in Ethiopia 50 years ago; the spacecraft is named after the famous human ancestor.

NASA’s Lucy will venture as close as 596 miles (960 kilometers) to this asteroid, an estimated 2 ½ miles (4 kilometers) in length but much shorter in width. Scientists should have a better idea of its size and shape following the brief visit. The spacecraft will zoom by at more than 30,000 mph (48,000 kph).

The asteroid is among countless fragments believed to have resulted from a major collision 150 million years ago.

“It’s not going to be a basic potato. We already know that,” said lead scientist Hal Levison of Southwest Research Institute.

Rather, Levison said the asteroid may resemble a bowling pin or even a snowman like Arrokoth, the Kuiper Belt object visited by NASA’s New Horizon spacecraft in 2019. The other possibility is that there are two elongated but separate asteroids far apart.

“We don’t know what to expect. That’s what makes this so cool,” he said.

There will be no communications with Lucy during the flyby as the spacecraft turns its antenna away from Earth in order to track the asteroid. Levison expects to have most of the science data within a day.

Lucy’s next stop — “the main event,” as Levison calls it — will be the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. Swarms of Trojans precede and follow the solar system’s largest planet as it circles the sun. Lucy will visit eight of them from 2027 through 2033, some of them in pairs of two.

Lucy’s first asteroid flyby was in 2023 when it swept past little Dinkinesh, also in the main asteroid belt. The spacecraft discovered a mini moon around it.