“I need to tell my story myself and highlight lessons that I learned along the way that would be useful to others…” – Elon Musk (@elonmusk)
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■ TESLA $TSLA ($408.92, +1.13%):
– The UP.FIT Police Model Y at Cars and Coffee in Thousand Oaks. Great pic by Zack (@BLKMDL3).
– Tesla filed a lawsuit against North Dakota challenging the state’s ban on direct vehicle sales by manufacturers. The North Dakota Department of Transportation denied Tesla’s 2024 dealership license applications for locations in Fargo and Bismarck, citing a statute prohibiting manufacturers from selling directly to consumers. The case is in South Central District Court before Judge Bonnie Storbakken, with a hearing scheduled for December. The state’s Assistant Attorney General Michael Pitcher defended the law as preventing manufacturer exploitation of dealers, noting Tesla’s interpretation could allow any automaker to bypass restrictions by avoiding franchises.
– Two hours away from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a pair of Robotaxi validation test vehicles were spotted near Enola. H/T Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt).
– Per Elon, “Just wrapped up the AI5 Saturday chip design review a few hours ago. We’re starting to do some work on AI6 too. Michael Dell and I happened to be meeting just beforehand, so I invited him to join. Hopefully, he found it interesting. Btw, AI5 will not be available in sufficient volume to switch over Tesla production lines until mid 2027, as we need several hundred thousand completed AI5 boards line side.”
Per Michael Dell (@MichaelDell), “It was super interesting and I enjoyed it very much. The Tesla team is cooking, and the future is even more exciting than I thought! Plus Grok 5 will be amazing.”
Per Elon, “Looks like we can bring power consumption down closer to 250 Watts, which is a big deal for Optimus. Important to note that AI5 is a specialized inference chip for the Tesla AI software. That said, it will perform – for our purposes – much better than anything else available. To borrow Jensen’s phrase, we wouldn’t use any other chip in our cars and robots even if they were free!“
– Model Y Performance on display in Legacy West, Plano Texas. Video by Innovating (@InnovatingCoin).
– Tesla has implemented an update to Supercharger listings in vehicles and the mobile app, displaying the common site name—such as a plaza or point of interest—along with the specific street address and city instead of only the town name. The Tesla app already shows common site names for consistency with in-vehicle displays, while full street and city details in Trip Planner views roll out in the coming weeks to both the in-car touchscreen and app.
– Melanie Richards, Tesla’s Global Supply Chain Manager and President of Women in Tesla, hosted Angela Ying, Nvidia’s VP of Business Operations, for a late-night discussion with the Women in Tesla community. Ying spoke on her experiences collaborating with CEO Jensen Huang over the past 26 years, and outlined her success strategies: cultivating a strong mindset, maintaining regular exercise, ignoring distractions, and committing to relentless hard work.
– Tesla launched a limited-time U.S. Model Y lease deal eliminating the $3,000 down payment while keeping the $479/mo. rate for 36 months, 10,000 miles/year. Every new lease includes one free upgrade: premium paint, 20-inch Helix wheels, white interior, or 3,500-lb tow hitch. The offer applies post-mid-November to credit-qualified buyers in eligible states.
– According to a Wall Street Journal, Tesla plans to phase out all China-made parts from its U.S. factories within the next two years. “Sources familiar with the matter” are saying several components have already been replaced. Keep in mind that the Tesla Model Y and 3 are the most American made cars, so what ever they are sourcing may not be that difficult to replace.
– Per Elon, “If Gates hasn’t fully closed out the crazy short position he has held against Tesla for ~8 years, he had better do so soon.”
FLYOVERS:
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Giga Texas: Joe Tegtmeyer (@JoeTegtmeyer), 17th of October, ‘25.
■ SPACEX:
– Last Friday night, launch 150 of Falcon 9 Starlink 6-89 took place from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. This was the eighth flight for first stage booster B1092. It previously launched NROL-69, CRS-32, GPS III-7, USSF-36, and three Starlink missions. The booster landed on a drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. 29 Starlinks were deployed.
– Early Saturday morning, launch 151 of Falcon 9 Starlink 6-85 took place from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. This was the 24th flight for first stage booster B1078. It previously launched Crew-6, SES O3b mPOWER-B, USSF-124, BlueBird 1-5, Nusantara Lima (PSN N5), and 18 Starlink missions. The booster landed on drone ship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. 29 Starlinks were deployed.
– Sunday night, launch 152 of Falcon 9 Sentinel-6B took place from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. This was the third flight for first stage booster B1097. It previously supported two Starlink missions. The booster returned-to-site (RTS), landing on Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4) at Vandenberg. This marked the 500th overall re-flight of a flight-proven orbital class rocket.
Per SpaceX President a & COO, Gwynne Shotwell (@Gwynne_Shotwell), “Congratulations to the SpaceX team on completing 500 (!!!!) missions with flight-proven rocket boosters. You’ve made the impossible possible with reusable rockets, paving the way to land huge amounts of cargo and lots of people to establish permanent human presence on the Moon and beyond with Starship!“
Sentinel-6 was successfully deployed. The Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich, launched November 2020, and yesterday’s Sentinel-6B make up the Sentinel-6 mission, also known as Jason Continuity of Service (Jason-CS), which is a partnership between NASA, NOAA, ESA, and EUMETSAT. This mission continues the long-term global sea surface height data record begun by first Jason satellites in 1992.
– Saturday’s Giga Bay construction progress at Starbase. Pic by Amy (@mymatrixplug). Follow any support Amy’s work.
– Saturday night, SpaceX rolled the Super Heavy booster thrust simulator stand from Massey’s to the production site.
– Audrey Decker (@audrey_decker9) of Politico has reported SpaceX’s new tentative schedule for HLS from an “internal document” she obtained (no source given). Her is the updated schedule:
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Prop transfer June 2026.
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Uncrewed lunar landing June 2027.
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Crewed lunar landing Sept 2028.
– When your Hovercraft arrives to pick you up at Starbase. by SpaceX’s Production Coordinator, Mark Federschmidt (@BoosterTribe) “I try to always remember I will never work anywhere else that I take a hovercraft to work… Also I help build the largest launch vehicle ever which is really cool.”
– Friday night, a Raptor engine test at the McGregor facility experienced an explosion shortly after startup initiation likely from methane-oxygen propellant mixing due to a leak or combustion irregularity. There were no injuries thanks to remote monitoring and safety protocols. While McGregor routinely conducts destructive tests to assess engine limits, this event’s early-phase failure suggests an unintended malfunction.
– SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell and Starlink VP of Engineering Michael Nicolls, will deliver a keynote speeches at the 2026 Mobile World Congress (MWC26) Barcelona. The event is from March 2nd to 5th at Fira de Barcelona’s Gran Via.
Starbase City Commission Meeting (Located at The Hub, 39046 LBJ Blvd, Unit 2, Brownsville, TX 78521):
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City Commission Regular Meeting, November 19, 2025 7:00 PM
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City Commission Regular Meeting, December 17, 2025 7:00 PM
Countdown to 180 (147 – Falcon 9, 0 – Falcon Heavy, and 5 – Starship):
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Launch 153! Tuesday, 18th of November, at 6:29 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 6-94 will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The booster will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Launch 154! Wednesday, 19th of November, at 10:18 a.m. PT, Falcon 9 Transporter 15 will launch from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The booster will land on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean. SpaceX’s 15th dedicated rideshare flight to a sun-synchronous orbit with dozens of small microsatellites and nanosatellites for commercial and government customers.
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Launch 155! Thursday, 20th of November, at 2:05 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 6-78 will launch from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The booster will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Launch 156! Saturday, 22nd of November, at 6:41 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 6-79 will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. The booster will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Launch 157! Sunday, 23rd of November, at 12:00 a.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 11-30 will launch from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The booster will land on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean.
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■ THE BORING COMPANY:
– This is TBC’s Vertical Cassette and Belt Bender system in Nashville for the Music City LOOP. This enables continuous rock removal from the Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) with a closed loop that extends through the structures, into the tunnel to the TBM cutterhead, and returns above ground. For the planned 9-mile tunnel, the system operates with 18 miles of conveyor belt in constant motion. It achieves a rock removal rate exceeding 33,000 pounds per minute.
– Wanna race?! TBC just released a new video showing how much time is saved by using the Vegas LOOP compared to the surface streets. If you remember, back in 2019, TBC did the race from Hawthorne to Los Angeles in their test tunnel. The Model 3 got up to 127 MPH! The Vegas LOOP video in on top and Test Tunnel on the bottom.
■ NEURALINK:
– Alex Conley, NP2, shared a custom tilting monitor arm built by his uncle and mounted on his motorized wheelchair. This allows his large curved ultrawide monitor and MacBook to pivot during essential 20-30 degree reclines for pressure sore prevention, ensuring uninterrupted thought-based control of devices via his BCI. “Now the Neuralink has room to roam!“
– Rocky Stoutenburgh, aka Rockynohands (@RockyNoHands) has dropped another short video from his trip to Neuralink. In this one, Neuralink’s John explains how the neurosurgeon and the R1 surgical robot work together from opening the skull to precisely inserting the 64 ultra-thin electrode threads into the target region of the brain. (Could not find John’s info.)
■ STARLINK:
– A Starlink billboard on the way to Austin. Pic by Kamran Cheema CEO and founder SpaceX subsidiary Akoustis.
– With EchoStar selling their radio spectrum to SpaceX, Hughesnet, an EchoStar subsidiary, will now refer its 783,000 existing broadband subscribers to Starlink via a fee-based program that will also targets new customers. This was detailed in a 10-Q SEC filing released last Friday. Post-deal, EchoStar will withhold additional liquidity from Hughesnet, which faces cash shortages for the next 12 months and doubts its viability. Hughesnet had 912,000 customer only a year ago.
– As reported on Friday, Emirates Airlines at the Dubai Airshow announced its plan to operate the world’s largest Starlink-enabled international wide-body fleet by equipping their 232 Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 aircraft. Each Boeing 777 will feature two antennae and each A380 three antennae. Implementation commences on a Boeing 777 on November 23, followed by the first A380 in early 2026, and fleet wide installations starting February 2026 at a rate of approximately 14 aircraft monthly. Target completion is mid-2027. The service provides free one-click access for all customers without payment or Skywards membership.
■ 𝕏:
– When you are mid-flight and Elon looks at you… Today, James Musk (@jmusk) posted images of the Christmas Eve server heist of 2022. The day he, Elon, and his hardcore team decided to turn the jet around and end a $100,000/mo. lease on a Sacramento data center that Elon deemed unacceptable.
– Per Elon, “You should notice rapid improvements in the quality of your timeline almost every week, but there will be two steps forward and one step back at times. We are also switching advertising recommendations to use the same Grok/AI system as organic posts, so quality of ads will get radically better.”
– X Chat now has a X account, @chat. The feature is now platform wide and has end-to-end encryption on chats and file sharing, has edit, delete, or make messages disappear features, block screenshots and get notified of attempts, no ads. no tracking. “Total privacy.”
– According to X’s Santiago (@santiagomedr), X API developers have made over 100k requests with xurl CLI.
– X’s Head of Product Nikita Bier (@nikitabier) says the “About this account” info will go live within two days. Info should include: the user’s join date, the account location, the verification date, how many username changes have been made, and the country of the App Store of the account.
■ xAI:
– Grok 4.1 Beta is now on all platforms. Grok 4.1 (thinking) has already achieved the top position on LMArena’s Text Arena leaderboard with an Elo score of 1483, while standard Grok 4.1 ranks second at 1465. On the Arena Expert leaderboard, Grok 4.1 (thinking) holds first place with 1510 points, whereas Grok 4.1 places 19th at 1437. These rankings mark a 40+ point Elo improvement over Grok 4 fast, which appeared on the leaderboard two months earlier. https://lmarena.ai/
– X’s Director & Co-Head Developer of the Platform, Chris Park (@chrisparkX), was at xAI’s first New York City Tech Event where over 600 excited engineering students from top universities nationwide attended. Per Chris. “All were excited to learn about xAI. All visibly moved to join the team to contribute to xAI and X. Great work by the entire team who took time out of their weekend to connect and inspire the next generation of engineering talent.”
– Per xAI’ Colossus Lead, Brent Mayo (@BrentM_SpaceX) on Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s (@sundarpichai) announcement of a new $40B investment in Texas to build Cloud & AI data centers in the Texas counties of Armstrong and Haskell, and fund more than double the projected pipeline of new Texan electricians. “Competition is always discussed in the AI era. The outcome of those competitions are what is universally positive for America (vocational jobs, industry, etc). Building the bedrock of American industries via vocational training isn’t discussed enough but it’s great to see across all AI teams.”
– Grok marketing in South Korea! Pic by Ying (Whitney) Han (@HanWhitney_), X Korea’s Marketing Manager.
■ ELON NEWS:
– “Haha no way! Copy cat!“ Elon’s reply to hearing Project Prometheus, Jeff Bezos’s (@JeffBezos) new AI startup. Here is what we know about Project Prometheus, Jeff Bezos’s (@JeffBezos) new AI startup.
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Jeff serves as co-CEO alongside Vik Bajaj, a physicist and former Google X executive.
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The company has secured $6.2 billion in funding, with contributions from Bezos himself.
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It already employs nearly 100 staff members, including researchers recruited from Meta, OpenAI, and Google DeepMind.
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It will develop AI products targeted at engineering and manufacturing applications in sectors such as computers, aerospace, and automobiles.
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It is unclear how long the company has existed.
I love to see this. Jeff and Elon have completely different management styles, and for the foreseeable future, Elon remains untouchable—he moves too fast for anyone to catch up or keep up with.
With Jeff, it feels like he’s finally regained his old Amazon stride back. Once Blue started losing all the NASA contracts (for good reason), he made the necessary adjustments and they finally got New Glenn flying. His team nailed every phase of the launch, including the landing, on just the second attempt. That precision deserves the hype. Let’s just hope we see some Amazon style mass rocket production out of Blue, because this only helps the American space industry.
If Jeff takes this more hands on approach towards Prometheus, then it will be successful. I assume they are far behind the playing field, but he has deep pockets and the ability to pull in talent. Will it reach xAI, OpenAI level? Doubtful, but I do not think that is his objective. As far as we know, this is for the business sector only, not for public consumption like Alexa. Think along the lines of AWS. That is something he and his people are very good at.
Elon and Jeff enjoy competition. Their back and forth is fun to watch, and competition drives greatness. So if I had to guess, Elon is probably smiling, cracking his knuckles, ready fight…
No matter what, expect lots of lawsuits 😆
Thanks for reading! As always, if you have any questions, feedback, or would like point out an error in the reporting, please do so in the comments.
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Have a great day!
■ SOURCES:
Tesla:
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https://driveteslacanada.ca/news/tesla-sues-north-dakota-over-its-direct-sales-ban/
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https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-to-phase-out-china-made-parts-us-factories-report/#google_vignette
SpaceX:
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Starlink Mission 6-89
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Starlink Mission 6-85
Starlink:
𝕏:
xAI:
Elon News: