S.E. Robinson, Jr.

Want to Know: The Daily Musk Company Update (Patreon)

Published:

2024-08-26 20:36:52

Imported:

2026-06

Content

26th of August, 2024

"Hardcore wins, softserve doesn’t..." - Elon (@elonmusk), 26th of August, 2024.

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■ TESLA $TSLA ($213.21, -3.23%):

- The Tesla Hobart Store Opening attracted over 2,500 people on Saturday. The had Model 3 and Y Demo Drives, Cybertruck on display, and a Roadster on display! The held a 'Paint a Tesla' event, had local food and coffee vendors, and held Tasmania’s largest Lightshow (72 cars). Per Store Manager Mark Davis, "A massive day for all who assisted in making this what it was. It far exceeded what we had hoped for, so thank you!"

- Cybertruck Demo Drives at the Electrify Expo this past weekend in Alameda, California. Pic by Ryan Torres (@RyanTorresTesla).

- We all know by now, but Tesla has officially launched their new referral program! Referrers earn $500 toward Supercharging, software upgrades, merchandise, service payments, or towards a new vehicle. you can earn up to 10 referrals ($5,000). You also could win a chance to upcoming Tesla events. Buyers who use your referral will get $1,000 off their new Tesla and Loyalty customers get $1,000 off Tesla products. You can support me and the updates by using my referral here!

- Elon posted a video inside of the Tesla Cortex and WOW! This is the first walkthrough of the AI supercomputer inside Giga Texas. Per Elon, "The giant new AI training supercluster being built at Tesla HQ in Austin to solve real-world AI."

- Today, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that Canada will impose a 100% tariff on EVs made in China beginning the 1st of October. Tesla will also be subject to the tariff. They currently import the Model Y and Model 3 Performance from Giga Shanghai into Canada.

- Zanegler (@HinrichsZane) caught Tesla training the Semi for FSD / Autopilot this weekend near Giga Nevada. Per Zane, "This is an Engineering Tesla Semi with sensors that likely include lidar." Checkout Zane's video in the thread and subscribe to him to support his work.

- Tesla China has yet again extended their 5-year 0% interest loan for new Model 3 and Y purchases. It is now slated to end the 30th of September.

- Tesla Malaysia held their first Performance Event at the Gamuda Cove Experience Gallery in Selangor, Malaysia. More pics in the thread.

- Tesla has set up another cool Pop-up store, this time on the 1st Floor of Yuanfangjin District in Hong Kong. Optimus is on display along with Cybertruck and Quicksilver Model 3 and Y. The event will be held from now until the 1st of September. Pics in the thread.

- According to Not-a-Tesla-App, a new OTA update will include a new icon showing Construction on your Route, Predictive Text for Navigation Searches, Search This Area, and Mobile App Notifications for Tire Service.

FLYOVERS:

Giga Texas: Joe Tegtmeyer (@JoeTegtmeyer) 26th of August, '24. Beautiful shots of the Cybertrucks this morning! According to Joe, crews are cleaning out the coolant water pipes. The evac tunnels are getting the exit doorways framed. The Bag House assembly and concrete work continues, And the parking garage testing continues. Subscribe and support Joe!

Giga Texas/RCR Taylor Railyard: Airwave Dynamics, 25th of August, '24. We get some great views of the large tents at the railyard. Still not exactly sure what they will be used. Probably end-of-line activities.

Giga Berlin: Robert and Andres (@wolfpackberlin), 25th of August, '24. Great walkthrough of the Charger Solar Canopy construction. Plus some close ups of the new graffiti art.

Giga Nevada: Zanegler (@HinrichsZane), 24th of August, '24. Awesome video by Zane showing the progress of the Semi Factory. Steel has been moved into position and as of today, it has gone vertical!
Giga Texas: Brad Sloan, 24th of August, '24.

Giga Berlin: Tobias Lindh (@tobilindh), 23rd of August, '24. Great flyover as usual of Phase 2. Great overlays by Tobias so we can get our bearings of what is to come. And talk about great timing. We get to see the two Tesla Semis arrive at the factory!

■ SPACEX:

- What a week ahead of us. All eyes are on Tuesday for the Polaris Dawn launch. The rehearsal and static fire were completed this weekend and all is Go for Launch! Per Elon, "The Polaris Dawn mission readiness review just finished and we are currently go for launch in just over 24 hours. Crew safety is absolutely paramount and this mission carries more risk than usual, as it will be the furthest humans have traveled from Earth since Apollo and the first commercial spacewalk! If any concerns arise, the launch will be postponed until those concerns are addressed."

- That's not all! We also have four other launches this week; Starlink 9-5, Starlink 8-16, NORL-113, and Starlink 8-10. It is crazy to watch this cadence. Nobody in history has ever launched. Per Elon, "SpaceX is doing a major launch every ~3 days now. Next year, a launch every ~2 days. We will probably deliver close to 90% of payload mass to Earth orbit and beyond this year. Great work by a great team!"

- Per Sergio Lara, Spaceport Operations at SpaceX, "While humans may reach for the sky with towers of steel, nature crafts towering storm clouds that remind us of the limitless power and beauty beyond our grasp."

- On Saturday, NASA announced that Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will return home February 2025 aboard the SpaceX Crew-9 Dragon with two other crew members assigned to that mission. Boeing's Starliner will return to Earth unmanned in early September. The uncrewed return allows NASA and Boeing to gather more test data and make a safe, controlled autonomous re-entry and landing.

Per Gwynne Shotwell (@Gwynne_Shotwell), "SpaceX stands ready to support NASA however we can."

Per Elon, "Arguably, a natural turn of events. Just as the car companies did not dominate the medium of air (they tried), the aircraft companies will not dominate the medium of space."

- V2 Starship 33 getting it's engine aft section stack this weekend! Amazing shot by Starship Gazer (@StarshipGazer).

- The Chopsticks continue to get worked on for the IFT-5 catch. Over the weekend we saw the Hard Stops between the chopsticks were removed. These stop the arms from closing too close together. Video in thread. And at the Rocket Garden, B14.1 was fitted with what looked like 2 load point arms. Looks like SpaceX isn't done with chopstick tests.

- Still no update from the FAA on flight approval for IFT-5. Adrian Beil (@BCCarCounters) of @NASASpaceflight posted the latest statement from the FAA. It reads, "The FAA is evaluating SpaceX's proposed license modification for its Starship Flight mission. SpaceX must meet all safety, environmental, and other licensing requirements prior to FAA authorization."

- Probably the best pic of SpaceX’s 737. This shot of the jet landing in Los Angeles is by Daniel Lapierre Forget for JetPhotos (@JetPhotos).

Countdown to 144 (82 - Falcon 9, 1 - Falcon Heavy, and 2 - Starship):

Launch 86! Monday, 26th of August, at 11:27 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 9-5 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 87! Tuesday, 27th of August, at 3:38 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 Polaris Dawn will launch from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. This will be the first mission of the privately funded Polaris program. This mission is to last up to five days in orbit, fly higher than any previous Dragon missions, perform the first-ever commercial EVA with SpaceX-designed spacesuits, orbit through portions of the Van Allen radiation belt, conduct medical research, and test laser-based Starlink communications. The booster will land on drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean.
Launch 88! Wednesday, 28th of August, at 3:13 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 8-6 will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SCL-40) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The booster will land on drone ship Just Read the Instructions in the Atlantic Ocean.
Launch 89! Thursday, 29th of August, at 7:51 a.m. PT, Falcon 9 NORL-113 will launch from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. This is the third batch of satellites for a reconnaissance satellite constellation built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman for the National Reconnaissance Office to provide imaging and other reconnaissance capabilities. The booster will land on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean.
Launch 90! Saturday, 31st of August, at 1:39 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 8-10 will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SCL-40) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The booster will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

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■ THE BORING COMPANY:

- The Boring crews continue to construct the Cyber-Tunnel interior entrance. Hats off to joe for an amazing shot of the both ends of the tunnel. WOW!

- According to Steve Hill, President and CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the Boring Company Vegas Loop is to implement autonomous driving aspects within the Vegas LOOP by the end of the year. Per Hill, "Hopefully this will get started just lightly, using a driver assistance tool by the end of this year." The plan is to begin with the Teslas that are utilized in the system now. If you look at last Thursday's Update. You will see that The Boring Company's Zach Strong is now hiring for Software Engineer in Las Vegas to build autonomous cars underground. So this is just the beginning folks.

■ NEURALINK: N/A...

■ STARLINK:

- Last week Electrónica Naval S.A. of Buenos Aires was at the port of Ushuaia. The installed Starlink aboard the Atlantic Centurion and San Arawa II. Beautiful place!

- Ghana's National Democratic Congress presidential candidate John Mahama has pledged to provide Starlink internet for all senior high schools to allow access to online tutorials nationwide. Mahama outlined this policy during his party's manifesto launch which is themed "Resetting Ghana."

- Gustavo Reeves, Regional Sales Manager LATAM at WorldLink Communications, posted this pic of their latest Starlink Maritime install. "Installation and commissioning of Starlink High Performance! We have the stock to meet the needs of your fleet!"

- Lawrence (Loz) Sharp of GRC Ltd. using Starlink Mini at the Osborne House, a former royal residence in East Cowes, Isle of Wight, of the UK. "This is a new generation in small mobile satellite terminals. Starlinks new V4 Mini. Paired with a high spec power bank and mini tripod all in a small backpack for on the move broadband."

■ X:

- . Per X's Kevin Tong (@_KevinTong), "It’s been an incredible 4 months working at X. Few places let interns work on high vis projects, let alone be responsible for double-digit top line metrics. As of today, 100% of the push recommendation system is now replaced with newer, better, faster. 2 billion notifications a day. You also get to present to the boss!"

- Serious Callers Only (@EthicsGradient) posted that, "The source code has never been updated. 0 commits. Hard to call it open source, unless you believe it hasn’t changed in over a year." Elon responded with, "Good point, a lot has been improved. We will do more regular commits. If possible, will publish the latest code end of week."

- X's Chris Park (@chrisparkX) posted this image of the first ever X Conference meeting! Chris and his teammates showed how strong of an alternative it will be for Google Hangouts, Zoom, AWS Chime, and Microsoft Teams. Per Chris, "Minimal feedback that is likely coming: - better vis or notification when someone leaves or joins - ability to pin main speakers or participants - less back and forth change on main panel so I don't keep seeing my awesome face."

- X Verified (@verified) announced Insights for organization. It is a real-time analysis tool to gain an understanding of market trends and public opinion.

- Found this little nugget. Wisdom House Realty Group (@WisdomHouse_TX) out of Bastrop, Texas, posted that they were giving a presentation at the "X office" about moving to Bastrop and held a raffle for local businesses. "Thank you X! We had over $2000 worth of donation items we raffled from Bastrop businesses!" Not a lot of details, but it seems that there is an X office already active in the Bastrop/Austin area.

- Community analytics are coming to X and X is working to clean up stats on iOS.

- X's Juan C (@jony404) inside the X HQ this weekend.

- According to the Verge, Elon emailed X staff telling them to submit a 1 page summary of their contributions to the company in order to determine their award of stock options. The awards are to be based on employee's individual contributions to X.

- Per Elon on X group video meetings, "It’s how we do product/engineering meetings now!"

■ xAI:

- PEr xAI, Grok-2-mini got a speed upgrade. They have substantially improved the inference stack by using custom algorithms for computation and communication kernels, along with more efficient batch scheduling and quantization. "Our inference team at xAI has pioneered techniques like SGLang, msccl/msccl++, and accuracy-preserving quantization. If you're a systems hacker interested in new ideas for squeezing out the last drop of GPU FLOPs/BW, apply at xAI!"

■ ELON NEWS: N/A...

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If you have not seen this past weekend's Article, you are missing out. I drove around Central Texas on FSD 12.5 and hit up everyone of Elon's sites. From Bastrop to McGregor. Do not forget to check out the thread on X attached to that article for tons of pics and videos.

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