ELON CHRON: Your 24hr Musk Companies Update

22nd of May, 2025

S. E. Robinson, Jr.

May 22, 2025

"Texas is the maker state..." - Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

■ TESLA TSLA 0.00%↑ ($341.04, +1.92%):

- Elon and U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy at Giga Texas.

Per Tesla's Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy), "Thank you Secretary Duffy and team for visiting us! It was a very productive visit and looking forward to working closely with the Department of Transportation and the NHTSA as we usher in the next wave of safe and affordable transportation for all of the United States."

- Carscoops (@Carscoop) spotted a prototype of the refreshed Model Y Performance at the Nürburgring track in Germany. You can see an elongated rear spoiler, 21-inch wheels that resemble the Model S Plaid’s Arachnid rims, and a possible staggered tire setup with Pirelli P Zeros, red brake calipers, and a lowered suspension. The dual-motor setup is expected to deliver around 510 horsepower, achieving 0-60 mph in approximately 3.2 seconds, with a starting price around expected at $55,000.

- Also at Nürburgring, the a Model S with a camo covered front and rear appears to be the new S Facelift. You can see a new front bumper design with a new front lip. Plus, a new wheel design. Pics are from @InsideEVs.

- Per Elon in Optimus, "The biggest product ever..."

Per Tesla's Milan Kovac (@_milankovac_), "One of our goals is to have Optimus learn straight from internet videos of humans doing tasks. Those are often 3rd person views captured by random cameras etc. We recently had a significant breakthrough along that journey, and can now transfer a big chunk of the learning directly from human videos to the bots (1st person views for now). Next: expand to 3rd person video transfer (aka random internet), and push reliability via self-play (RL) in the real-, and/or synthetic- (sim / world models) world."

Per Tesla's Murtaza Dalal (@mihdalal), "We can now do bi-manual, dexterous manipulation across a wide range of tasks with barely any data on these skills coming from teleoperation. As we know, teleop does not scale! But turns out human video does! Optimus can now rapidly pick up new skills, with significantly less effort than before. What's next? You guessed it - RL! Who would have guessed that humanoids are good for learning from humans."

- Yesterday, 1,000 Giga Berlin employees participated as the biggest team in the Berlin Company Run. Check out the new Model Y pace car!

- Tesla Europe announced the Model 3's 5-star EuroNCAP safety rating, highlighting its advanced protection for pedestrians, cyclists, and motorbikes with features like an Active Hood, upgraded Automatic Emergency Braking, head-on collision avoidance, crossing traffic AEB, and a Child Left Alone Detection system using in-cabin radar to alert caregivers if a child is left behind, initially rolling out to EU owners via over-the-air updates.

- New York Fire Department Commissioner Robert S. Tucker (@FDNYFC) met with Tesla Representatives at the Fire Academy for a hands-on training event that taught first responders more about lithium- ion batteries and energy storage systems.

- Tesla filed trademark applications for "Cybercab" and "Robotaxi" with a cyberpunk-style design, similar to the Cybertruck logo. This is the 2nd attempt after earlier "Robotaxi" trademark rejections by the USPTO in October, but the 1st attempt with this stylized font revision.

- "Tesla Sweden. We come together as one team. We break records as one team. We celebrate as one team." Pic and statement by Tesla Sweden's Customer Engagement Coordinator Lidiya Mariam Sandström. Party Time!

- China's BYD registered 7,231 EVs in Europe this past April, beating Tesla for the first time. Tesla registered 7,165 units.

FLYOVERS (flight links in sources section):

Giga Texas: Joe Tegtmeyer (@JoeTegtmeyer), 21st of May, '25. More transformers delivered, Cortex 2 progress, outbound lot is full. Much more in the video!

■ SPACEX:

- The FAA has given SpaceX a greenlight for the launch of Flight 9. Since Booster 14 is the first reuse of a Super Heavy, the hazard zone is being expanded in the U.S and other countries. The Flight 8 mishap remains open.

- Per SpaceX's Sergio Lara, "Just your average morning commute — if you’re a 165-foot rocket. S35 on its way to Massey’s from Mega Bay 2..." Starship 35 went back to Massey's yesterday and underwent more cryo-testing. There is another road closure today at 8 p.m. CT from Massey's to factory, so expect ship to go back and undergo final preparations for Flight 9.

- Starbase is now an incorporated city in Texas with local governance in place. "We are excited to continue building the best city for our community."

- Tuesday night, launch 62 of Falcon 9 Starlink 12-15 took place from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. This was the first flight for first stage booster B1095. The booster landed on drone ship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean. 23 Starlinks were deployed, including 13 Direct to Cell.

- Tuesday night, Raptor Vac No.509 was delivered to Mega Bay 2. Not sure which vehicle it is for.

- Cargo Dragon C209 of the CRS-32 mission has been rescheduled to depart from the International Space Station tomorrow due to weather. It will bring home nearly 6,700 pounds of supplies, science experiments, and equipment including MISSE-20 (Multipurpose International Space Station Experiment), Astrobee-REACCH (Responsive Engaging Arms for Captive Care and Handling), Books from the Story Time from Space project, and OPTICA (Onboard Programmable Technology for Image Compression and Analysis). Dragon will splash down off California's coast on Saturday, the 24th.

- Aerial view of Falcon 9 Booster B1093 aboard Of Course I Still Love You coming in to the Port of Long Beach, California. Pic by Sully (@jsull_y).

- German launch services provider, Exolaunch, extended its multi-year partnership with SpaceX, securing Falcon 9 rideshare missions through 2028.

- SpaceX Starbase General Manager, Kathy Lueders, attended the STEM NATION 2025 Student Conference where she engaged with students from across the Rio Grande Valley. The event focused on the importance of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) as Valley students pursue their academic and professional goals. Kathy was joined by Executive Director of the Texas Space Commission, Norman Garza Jr, NASA astronaut Michael E. Fossum, and Brownsville City Manager Helen Ramirez.

- Possible Raptor 3 RUD at the McGregor Test Facility. @NASASpaceflight http://nsf.live/mcgregor

Countdown to 180 (60 - Falcon 9, 0 - Falcon Heavy, and 2 - Starship):

Launch 63! Thursday, 22nd of May, at 1:58 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 11-16 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! Saturday, 24th of May, at 1:19 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 12-22 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 65! Sunday, 25th of May, at 9:14 a.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 17-1 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 66! Tuesday, 27th 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 perform a soft splashdown in the Gulf of America. Starship 35 will doing a controlled soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Launch 67! Wednesday, 28th of May, at 9:30 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 10-32 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.
Launch 68! Friday, 30th of May, at 1:24 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 11-18 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:

- Flyover view of the Vegas Loop Station in front of the LVCC Central Hall.

■ NEURALINK:

- Jim Cooney, Head of Machine Shops at Neuralink, has done an interview with Hardware FYI. HE discuss how he leverages his 27 years of manufacturing experience from Tesla, Apollo Fusion, and Astra Space to oversee two Neuralink machine shops built in two states over three years, designed for low-volume, high-mix R&D prototyping with CNC machining, manual work, and inspection zones. Jim emphasizes speed, accuracy, and engineer-machinist collaboration for rapid iteration, distinct from Tesla’s production-focused prototype shops. Interview conducted by Benji Chia (@brainfewds).

■ STARLINK:

- Starlink now available in the Faroe Islands.

-SpaceX's Michael Nicolls (@michaelnicollsx) posted that so far in 2025, Starlink expanded across 21 African markets, with median download speeds of 125 Mbps in Rwanda to 279 Mbps in Madagascar. This outpaces terrestrial ISPs by 2-7 times. The company operates three PoPs in Africa, with plans to double this by early 2026 to reduce latency by terminating traffic locally instead of backhauling to Europe.

- Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) CEO Anko van der Werff at the APEX TECH event in Los Angeles this week stated they will continue Starlink and ignore the politics. "It is tricky, but we evaluated the product and the customer experience, not the people behind it, not the politics behind it. For us and our commercial interests, that’s the what we can do, Starlink offers a substantially better experience. I think the choice was pretty simple for us in the end." A phased rollout will start by the end of this year.

- The Monroe County Commission donated Starlink Mini terminals to six volunteer fire departments; Peterstown, Ballard, Lindside, Union, Gap Mills, and Alderson. This is to enhance emergency communications in rural West Virginia. This is to enable first responders to coordinate with the 911 Center during over 2,500 annual emergency calls. The initiative, led by County Clerk Jeremy Meadows and funded partly by the county’s $49,298 fire levy, follows the successful use of Starlink by the Monroe County Sheriff’s Department.

- Bitget, a cryptocurrency exchange, launched its Starlink Program in Siargao, Philippines, donating Starlink hardware to Espoir School of Life and Barangay Pitogo’s public school and six months of internet. This is to enable online curricula, teacher training, and e-governance tools. Bitget plans long-term support through their $10M Blockchain 4 Youth and $10M Blockchain 4 Her initiatives for blockchain literacy and digital finance skills.

■ X:

- "Just a normal Tuesday evening at NYC X." Rooftop pics by X's Hap (@hapburke).

- Yesterday, X's Mike Rosinsky (@mike_rosinsky) announced the release of Account Activity API (AAA) v2 on X. It enables Enterprise users to subscribe via OAuth to real-time user account activities like Posts and DMs through Webhooks, with new /2/webhooks and /2/account_activity/webhooks endpoints for management. Key upgrades include support for longform posts, modernized authentication with OAuth (3-legged) for user actions and OAuth2 Bearer tokens for app-level tasks like Webhook management. There are plans to extend access to Self-Serve Pro developers soon.

Per X's Chris Park (@chrisparkX), "We’re working on more webhook based endpoints to fast follow."

- X's Arkadii Ivanov (@arkann1985) and Eric Denman at the KotlinConf 2025 discussing X's adoption of Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP), a JetBrains technology for sharing code across Android, iOS, web, and desktop platforms. Pic by Martin Bonnin (@martinbonnin).

- Today, X co-launched the Freedom of Expression Declaration in Colombia at Universidad Externado in Bogotá. It will focus on enabling Colombians to exercise their rights and express ideas, while promoting evidence-based policies to ensure online safety.

■ xAI:

- xAI's Colossus 1 in Memphis, Tennessee, on the 13th of May by Stephen Voss.

- xAI downplayed Kalshi's claim to a partnership by stating, "Recent speculation about xAI's involvement in the prediction market space has been circulating. While we’re enthusiastic about the potential of this industry and engaged in various discussions, no formal partnerships have been confirmed to date. Stay tuned!" They did leave the door open.

- Yesterday, xAI announced their Live Search API. This enables Grok to access real-time data from X, the web, and news, with no knowledge cutoffs, and they are offering it for free in beta until the 5th of June for developers.

■ DOGE:

Estimated Savings: $170 Billion

Amount Saved Per Taxpayer: $1,055.90

- DOGE announced the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has canceled grants totaling $163 million in overall savings and will be merit-based and awarded to non-DEI, pro-America causes. Canceled grants include:

$350k for interactive gay travel guides to better understand historical LGBTQ+ spaces.
$350k to create a Spanish version of http://Homosauras.org.
$247k to digitize stories of transgender adults in the Pacific Northwest
$75k to examine the relationship between internet live streaming and LGBTQ+ communities
$60k to research how LGBTQ+ cartoonists innovated comics in the 1980s & 1990s
$150k for excavation of Egypt's first industrial-scale brewery

- DOGE, in partnership with the U.S. Air Force, reduced the Air Force Strategic Transformation Support I (AFSTS I) contract from $2.75 billion to $1.918 billion, saving over $1 billion by cutting external consulting costs, while also canceling the $3.8 billion AFSTS II contract. AFSTS contracts went to only eight management consulting firms in 2020 to source “transformation Continuous Process Improvement (CPI), and organizational efficiency experts."

- DOGE announced over the last two days, agencies terminated 120 contracts with a ceiling value of $3.1 billion and savings of $908 million, including a $288k Department of Defense consulting contract for “culture services”, and $4.05 million for “technical services” in Mozambique.

- DOGE announced that 198 (19%) of the 1048 phone lines used by the U.S Office of Personnel Management were either unused or duplicated, and were cancelled within 1 hour. This will result in ~$100k/yr in savings. Per DOGE, "Since OPM is ~0.1% of the federal government, this suggests that ~$100M/yr is wasted on unused lines."

■ ELON NEWS:

- South African President Cyril Ramaphosa met President Trump at the White House to discuss trade, investment, and technological collaboration. Reports are saying Ramaphosa confirmed talks to introduce Tesla EVs, Starlink, and explored local processing to boost economic growth of nine critical minerals. Starlink and Tesla have been delayed by Black Economic Empowerment laws requiring 30% local black ownership and racism towards white South Africans.

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