S.E. Robinson, Jr.

Want to Know: Your Daily Musk Companies Update (Patreon)

Published:

2024-12-03 21:26:56

Imported:

2026-06

Tags:

AI Elon Musk ElonMusk Neuralink SpaceX Starbase Starlink Starship TSLA Tesla X the Boring Company xAI

Content

rd of December, 2024

"She is an activist posing as a judge..." - Elon Musk

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■ TESLA $TSLA ($351.42, -1.59%):

- Tesla's neon sign inside the Fremont Factory. Pic by Kristian Lukauskis Escobar

- Probably hearing this for the millionth time, but Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Chancery Court has yet again denied Elon his $56 billion compensation package from Tesla despite shareholders voting to reinstate it. She has ordered Tesla to pay the law firms of Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann and Friedman Oster & Tejtel, both based in New York, and Andrews & Springer of Wilmington, Delaware $345 million. They represented Richard Tornetta, a shareholder who only owned 9 shares. Tesla announced they will appeale in the Delaware Supreme Court. That ruling will set a precedent as far as shareholder rights in that state.

Per Elon, "She is an activist posing as a judge."

Per Tesla's Tom Zhu, "We fight for justice and to protect our rights as shareholders."

Per Tesla's Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy), "Insane!! It’s just so obviously unfair, that I can only explain this as corruption."

- Car and Driver has named the Model 3 Long Range as one of the Top 10 Best Cars for 2025. "Model 3 is a bargain. Its base sticker price is $44,130, but if you qualify for the federal $7,500 rebate, that drops to $36,630. That's an outstanding deal. Makes one wonder why most other automakers are losing big money on much more expensive EVs."

- Chattrawat Prasertsuk, Tesla Thailand Consumer Engagement Manager, giving a presentation at the Thailand International Motor Expo. Tesla is showcasing a Model 3 and Y plus the total ecosystem from charging solutions, service coverage, AI, and software.

- Last week (11/25 - 12/1) Tesla China insured 18,600 new vehicles. This was their second best week of 2024. November Sales hit 78,856, +15.49% MoM. Domestic Sales where at 73,000 vehicles sold locally. This is the highest sales in 2024!

- Per the Sebastien Leroy, Mayor of Mandelieu, France, "These latest-generation EVs are much better suited to intra-urban patrols than combustion vehicles. They allow us to increase the efficiency of our officers in the field, deploy new technological surveillance equipment, and save 85% of the operating and maintenance costs... It's a shame that the French manufacturers didn't see fit to respond to our call for tenders... Congratulations to Tesla, an economic player in our City, for having committed to it." Mandelieu is the first Municipal Police Department in France equipped with Tesla vehicles.

- The Tesla Collision Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, is having an Open House on the 12th of December from 6:30 to 9 p.m. ET. Go check it out and hear about Tesla's vehicle construction and tooling technology. You will get to take a tour of the Center led by the shop experts. They will have food and drinks on hand. Address is 1700 Garner Station Blvd., Raleigh, NC. 27603.

- President of Veterans at Tesla UK, Ryan Woodcock, was at the Victory Services Club in London where Tesla was awarded the Gold Award in the Armed Forces Covenant by Air Vice Marshall Simon Edwards of the Royal Air Force (RAF). This is the first time Tesla has been awarded a Gold Award. Per Ryan, "We are immensely proud to continue to support the Armed Forces Community and the UK Ministry of Defence."

- Tesla Australia and New Zealand have announced their Live on Sunshine campaign where you could win a Solar, Powerwall, and Wall Connector System for your home and a 10-Day Tesla Test drive! To qualify, you must submit your entry between November 18, 2024, and April 30, 2025. Limit one entry per household. If you get a system during this timeframe, you can triple your entries to win and be eligible for reimbursement of your system and installation costs. Winners will be announced in May 2025. Link in the sources section.

FLYOVERS (flight links in sources section):

Giga Texas: Brad Sloan, 3rd of December, '24.

Giga Nevada Semi Factory: Zanegler (@HinrichsZane), 3rd of December, '24. Roof Panel install continues. Perimeter walls going up quick. New foundation work in Section G. According to Luca Greco (@lucagrecoita), they are foundations for stamping presses.

■ SPACEX:

- The discussion from the 31st Annual Baron Investment Conference, held on November 15th, of Gwynne Shotwell, Ron Baron, and Ishay Levin has been posted. They talk about Starship, the "Mechazilla" booster recovery, and Starlink. Video in the sources section.

- Starship 34 was spotted inside Mega Bay 2 last night. Screenshot from @NASASpaceflight's live feed.

- SpaceX is in discussions for a tender offer with a valuation of roughly $350 billion! According to Bloomberg, this would be a premium to a previous valuation of $255 billion and would cement SpaceX’s status as the most valuable private US company. SpaceX and Elon have not confirmed this, so we shall see what happens. They are usually quick to squash stories like this.

- The fram2 team just completed another round of training. This session featured flight simulations in the Dragon mockup vehicle and medical training to prepare for various scenarios on-orbit, and research training for a number of experiments. All of their suits passed acceptance testing, which means that they are ready to fly.

Countdown to 144 (120- Falcon 9, 2 - Falcon Heavy, and 4 - Starship):

Launch 127! Wednesday, 4th of December, at 3:29 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 6-70 will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The booster will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
Launch 128! Tuesday, 3rd of December, at 7:05 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 9-14 will launch from Space Launch Complex 4 East (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 129! Thursday, 5th of December, at 11:10 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 Sirius SXM-9 will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The booster will land on an unknown landing pad at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. SXM-9 is the 10th high-powered, digital, audio radio satellite built by Maxar (SSL) for SiriusXM. The SXM-9 satellite will be based on Maxar’s 1300-class platform and built at the company’s manufacturing facility in Palo Alto, California. SXM-9 has a large, mesh, unfurlable reflector almost 10 meters in diameter that allows SiriusXM programming to reach its radios, including those in moving vehicles.
Launch 130! Saturday, 7th of December, at 1:24 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 11-2 will launch from Space Launch Complex 4 East (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 131! Sunday, 8th of December, at 12:10 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 12-5 will launch from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral, Florida. The booster will land on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

■ THE BORING COMPANY:

- At Giga Texas, the Cyber-Tunnel west exit continues to get footings for the surrounding structures. Electrical is running to the steel structure that is under construction. Latest image from Joe Tegtmeyer (@JoeTegtmeyer).

- Latest images from Bras Sloan's flyover today.

- The University of Pennsylvania's tunnel boring team, Penn Hyperloop, has officially passed all design requirements and the final design challenge to qualify for the "Not-a-Boring-Competition"! The team had to put together a 106-page final design package and submit it the The Boring Company for approval and passed. The competition will take place in Bastrop, Texas, at The Boring Company’s headquarters from the 23rd through the 30th of March, 2025.

■ NEURALINK: N/A...

■ STARLINK:

- NEC Australia's Louis Grynfeltt has placed Starlink atop the 'tree' and is wishing you all a happy holiday season and a happy new year 2025.

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- One New Zealand's Ben Thomsen, General Manager for Business, is travelling around some stunning but remote locations throughout the South Island, such as Milford Sound. Ben and team are putting the SpaceX Starlink Direct-to-Cells service to the test, braving all kinds of weather as part of the roadmap to service launch.

- Per Martin Smale, Chief Information Officer Montagu UK, "Another week…. Another flight…. On route to Melbourne... and on the second leg from Doha, joined the first Qatar flight with Starlink. 200mbps download whilst at 40,000 feet isn’t too shabby but it did mean I had no excuse not to work."

- Latest install of Starlink by Husnul Huluq, IT Support for Kaltim Diamond Coal of Indonesia.

■ X:

- X has hired Dave Heinzinger (@dvyhnz) as their Head of Media Strategy.

- Shopify merchants in the U.S. and Canada can now run ads and sync products to the X Shopping Manager via X’s new app in the Shopify app store. This allows sellers to easily showcase and promote their products on X.