ELON CHRON: Your 24hr Musk Companies Update

14th of May, 2025

May 14, 2025

"We can make a way hotter catgirl robot..." - Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

■ TESLA TSLA 0.00%↑ ($347.68, +4.07%):

- Unlike the first dance video, Optimus is not tethered to a support cable. Per Elon, "It does this every day in our Palo Alto lab. And multiple Optimus robots walk around the office 24/7 with no one watching over them, charging themselves as needed."

Per Tesla's Murtaza Dalal (@mihdalal), "As promised, the team is crazy fast. Sim2real RL is the key to getting next level agile, dynamic motions. It's also the key to precision and robustness. Optimus has a lot more cooking. Stay tuned!"

Per Tesla's Milan Kovac (@_milankovac_), "No cables this time! It's all real-time speed, zero CGI, fully learned in Simulation & zero-shot transferred to real... we had to make significant improvements to our robot model in Sim, domain randomization and other techniques which will directly transfer to more practical situations as well (robust walking, and agile full-body control in general). I hope it is getting pretty clear that Tesla is much more than an amazing car company; it's the place to be for transformational real-world AI."

- Today in Doha, Qatar, President Trump was given a Cybertruck Motorcade. This is part of the President's four day visit to the Middle East.

- According to Tesla Australia Country Director, Thom Drew, the Model S and X are not returning to Australia in the foreseeable future. "From what I understand, there are some engineering difficulties in the vehicle that make it not possible to build it in right-hand drive, due to some decisions that were made. So it doesn't appear to be something that's going to be made in right-hand drive anytime soon."

- A 50-minute interview has been posted by Gobinath with Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s VP of AI Software, delving into AI’s future in education, mobility, and robotics. Ashok and Tesla want fully autonomous vehicles without steering wheels in select U.S. cities by the end of 2025 and humanoid robots for household tasks by 2035. He also gives insights on working with Elon. Link to the interview is in the sources section.

- Tesla's board has created a special committee comprised by Chairwoman Robyn Denholm and Tesla board member Kathleen Wilson-Thompson. They are considering both a new stock option package and alternative forms of compensation for Elon's work to date. These are to be contingencies if the Delaware court does not reinstate the nullified 2018 agreement.

- John (@teslaownersSV), Joe (@SjvTesla), and crew got to tour the Lathrop, California, Megafactory a few weeks back and now we a 25 minute video of what they saw. Tesla Tour Coordinator Ivy Feng walked throughout the facility highlighting the layout and build process. Worth the watch.

- Tesla is set to resume shipping critical components from China to its U.S. facilities to accelerate production of the Cybercab and Semi.

- The Model 3 has a 0% APR promotion for up to 60 months or 0.99% APR for 72 months. It requires a minimum down payment of 15%, but the $7,500 federal tax credit can be used towards that. Remember, you get 3 free months of FSD by using your favorite creators referral.

- Laura Harting, Tesla's Director of Environmental Health and Safety delivered a keynote presentation titled "Real vs Fake Safety – Make your choice", at the 5th Annual EHS Leaders USA Summit 2025. Laura challenged traditional safety metrics and called out the danger of relying on outdated indicators that create a false sense of security—what she calls fake safety. "Safety isn’t the absence of incidents—it's the presence of capacity. Systems must be built to fail safely, not just avoid failure. Rethink metrics and shift from lagging OSHA stats to ASTM global standards. Tesla’s HOP-driven approach proves that “Safeguards Save Lives” isn’t just a slogan; it’s a strategy."

- According to a Business Standard report, Tesla is exploring land in Satara, Maharashtra, India, for a Completely Knocked Down (CKD) assembly unit for EVs. CKD refers to a product that is shipped in individual parts and assembled at a certain destination. They claim a senior government official told them this. If true, Tesla's focus on Satara could be due to its proximity to auto suppliers. Tesla has not confirmed any of this.

FLYOVERS (flight links in sources section):

Giga Texas: Joe Tegtmeyer (@JoeTegtmeyer), 14th of May, '25. Production is up today. Progress on Cortex 2.0, Welcome Center, and Megapack 2 sites. Plus camo Model Ys?!

■ SPACEX:

- Elon on Starship's Raptor engines, "Frankly, given the insane amount of power flowing through them, it’s amazing that rocket engines don’t just blow up every time!"

- Elon posted that before Starship flight next week, he will hold a company talk at Starbase explaining the Mars game plan. It will be live-streamed on X.

- Today, launch 60 of Falcon 9 Starlink 6-67 took place from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. This was the fourth flight for first stage booster B1090. It previously launched SES O3b mPOWER-E, Crew-10, and Bandwagon-3. The booster landed on drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. 28 Starlinks were deployed. This was the 450th successful landing of all SpaceX rockets (catches included).

- A navigational warning for Flight 9's splashdown in the Indian Ocean has been posted for the 21st.

- NASA announced that after reviewing the ISS flight schedule, they and their partners (SpaceX) are shifting launch opportunities for several upcoming missions. The schedule adjustments are to provide more time to finalize mission plans, spacecraft readiness, and logistics. The impacted missions all belong to SpaceX:

Axiom Mission 4: 9:11 a.m. EDT, Sunday, June 8
NASA’s SpaceX Crew-11: Late July
NASA’s SpaceX 33rd Commercial Resupply Services: Late August

Countdown to 180 (58 - Falcon 9, 0 - Falcon Heavy, and 2 - Starship):

Launch 61! Friday, 16th of May, at 6:00 a.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 15-5 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.
Launch 62! Monday, 19th of May, at 11:40 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 12-15 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.
Launch 63! Tuesday, 20th of May, at 2:42 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 15-5 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.
Launch 64! Wednesday, 21st of May, at 6:30 p.m. CT, Starship 35 Super Heavy Booster 14 (Flight 9) will launch from Orbital Launch Mount A (OLM-A) at Starbase, Texas. The booster will return to site and be caught by Tower A's Chopsticks. Starship 35 will doing a controlled soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

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■ THE BORING COMPANY:

- Per Elon, "Tunnels are under-appreciated..."

■ NEURALINK:

- Today, Neuralink announced they are launching their first clinical trial in the Middle East at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. This is in partnership with the Department of Health Abu Dhabi. The UAE-PRIME trial will explore how individuals with motor and speech impairment can use thought to control devices and communicate. Per Neuralink's Romina Nejad (@RominaNejad), "My team worked extremely hard to make this happen. Our goal is to scale our technology to help all those in need. One day at time. We were really impressed with the Abu Dhabi DOH."

Per Department of Health Abu Dhabi, "We are proud to partner with Neuralink and the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi and for making Abu Dhabi the first global site outside North America to conduct the UAE-PRIME trial. The Emirate's healthcare innovation ecosystem combines cutting-edge technologies and remarkable levels of clinical excellence, supported by the highest ethical principles and positive global impact."

■ STARLINK:

- Today, from a remote area in the Quilca Desert, Arequipa, Peru, telecom Entel successfully conducted the countries first Direct to Cell test of Starlink. The text messages successfully reached the headquarters of the Ministry of Transport and Communications and Osiptel in Lima. Per Entel's Gustavo Wesche, "An SMS may seem simple, but if I tell you that this was done in an area without mobile coverage, with a conventional cell phone that connected directly to SpaceX's low-orbit satellites and was able to send this text message from the desert to Lima, the story changes." Peru is now among only 10 countries worldwide that make use of DTC.

- ISP Gjirafa announced they have partnered with Starlink as an authorized retailer for the Balkans with a focus on Kosovo, Albania, and North Macedonia. They hosted a Starlink Experience Event at their headquarters in Prishtina, Kosovo.

- U.S. Army Captain and SpaceX Sourcing Manager, Grant Booker, "Another Annual Training in the books. Thanks again to our Starlink team for making it easy to stay connected for the last two weeks."

- Alaska Airlines has launched its first intercontinental route, connecting Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to Tokyo Narita with daily flights operated by Hawaiian Airlines’ Airbus A330-200s. The service follows Alaska’s $1.9 billion acquisition of Hawaiian Airlines last year, expanding its fleet and global reach. These flights depart Seattle at 1:30 p.m. PT and offer Starlink on each.

- Qatar Airways and the world’s first-ever in-flight e-sports tournament, held at 36,000 feet, featuring global gamers powered by Starlink.

■ X:

- X Japan's Nami Kizu (@NamiKizu) at X New York. "Thank you colleagues in New York for the valuable information, productive discussions, and warm welcome."

- X's Fred Lohner (@FredLohner) gave us another update on the Android X App. Fred still has not put me in the test group... Update includes:

You can report posts and request community notes on posts.
Fixed Notification Tab badge counts, it should now render the number of notifications you haven't read.
Notifications Tab entries should show the correct user avatars.
Web views now load full-screen correctly, eliminating awkward resizing on analytics page.
Ensured articles in quote posts render properly even when no media is attached.
Fixed a memory leak
Performance on scroll should be noticeably better.
Fixed a rare navigation crash caused by out-of-range tab selections.
Composing posts with media should now work correctly. There are particular images that are still causing issues.

- In 2024, Gaming posts on X hit 1.1 billion on X. Up 10% YoY.

- On the 3rd of April this year, the Paris Court of Appeal ordered X France to pay nearly €90,000, including €58,000 in damages, to a former employee for unfair dismissal and workplace harassment, The ruling states that aggressive emails sent by Elon to then Twitter employees after his 2022 acquisition of the company constituted moral harassment under French law.

- The Berlin Regional Court has overturned an order for X to share data with Democracy Reporting International and Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte. The Court ordered the activist groups to pay all legal and administrative costs. X had already succeeded in securing the recusal of the biased judge who granted the order and resisted an attempt by the activist organizations to declare the dispute moot in order to avoid an unfavorable judgment.

■ xAI:

- Per Elon on Grok bias filtering, "The xAI team is working overtime to achieve truth with least error. It is very difficult, but essential."

- xAI will participate and judge in the Nous Research (@NousResearch) Reinforcement Learning (RL) Environments Hackathon in San Francisco. Teams will create with Atropos, Nous' RL environments framework, and claim the stake of a $50,000 prize pool. The event is on the 18th of May from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. PT. Registration link in the sources section.

■ DOGE:

Estimated Savings: $165 Billion

Amount Saved Per Taxpayer: $1,024.84

- DOGE announced that current year Non-Defense Federal Obligations are down 20.5% YoY. Cash outlays will follow as obligations come due. Government wide contract reviews for wasteful spend are bearing fruit.

■ ELON NEWS:

- Today, Elon met with Sheikh Bandar bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Thani, Governor of Qatar’s Central Bank. They discussed global finance, investments, and AI.

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