S.E. Robinson, Jr.

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

Published:

2025-02-21 21:07:58

Imported:

2026-06

Tags:

AI Automation FSD Grok Neuralink Space SpaceX Starlink Starship TSLA Tesla The Boring Company technology xAI

Content

21st of February, 2025

"The Tesla factory IS the product..." - Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

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■ TESLA $TSLA ($337.80, -4.68%):

- Today, Akaysha Energy, backed by BlackRock, signed a 10-year "Battery Revenue Swap Agreement" with Gunvor Group for its 295 MW / 626 MWh Tesla Megapack site in Queensland, near Brisbane’s South Pine substation. This site is set for completion in 2026. This follows a $650 million debt financing and a 12-year, 200 MW offtake deal with EnergyAustralia for its 1,660 MWh Orana BESS in New South Wales, supporting Australia’s renewable energy transition and grid stability.

- Per Elon, "The Cybercab production line is like nothing else in the automotive industry."

- Tesla is at the Ferie for Alle in Herning Exhibition Center in Demark. Check them out in Hall K to see the Model Canopy. Pics by Tesla's Nour Hermiz and Nicholas Elston.

- Judge Edward Davila denied Tesla’s request for a restraining order to block Matthews International from selling dry battery electrode technology globally. Tesla filed a lawsuit in June of 2024 in Northern California federal court, alleging Matthews stole trade secrets for Tesla’s 4680 cells, claiming over $1 billion in damages. Matthews asserts its tech, patented under U.S. Patent No. 12,136,727, predates Tesla and is based on 25 years of its own research. Tesla's Bonne Eggleston (@BonneEggleston) stated Matthews can't sell Tesla's proprietary DBE technology.

- In Europe, the three variants of the new Model Y are now available for order. The RWD starts at €45,970. The RWD LR starts at €50,970. And the AWD LR starts at €53,970. The Launch Edition of the new Model Y is no longer available for order. Pic by Tesla Store Manager Theresa Tendick . She will have two new Model Ys for test drives at the Seed & Greet Supercharger in Hilden, Germany, today and tomorrow at 3 p.m.

- It appears that Giga Berlin has eliminated Midnight Cherry Red as a color option.

- The UNPLUGGED Performance (@UnpluggedTesla) INVINCIBLE Cybertruck in Abu Dhabi. - Tesla will do an Over the Air (OTA) update for approximately 380,000 vehicles in the U.S. due to a power steering assist failure that could increase steering effort at low speeds, potentially raising crash risks. It is being reported as a recall.

- The Model Y refresh reveal last night at the Tesla Center in Clermont-Ferrand, France. Pics by Tesla's Jonathan Lauvergnac.

- Tesla's France Director Mathieu Lenglin at the new Tesla Centr in Ville-la-Grand, France.

FLYOVERS (flight links in sources section):

Giga Texas: Joe Tegtmeyer (@JoeTegtmeyer), 21st of February, '25. Another great flyover by Joe. Per Joe, Giga Texas will see a lot of new construction this year. Possible new Cortex Cluster, a Test Track, new Guess Center and more! Very exciting. Subscribe to Joe and support his work!

Giga Nevada Semi Factory: Zanegler (@HinrichsZane), 21st of February, '25. Stamping progress, conduit work, and much more. Subscribe to Zane and support his work!

■ SPACEX:

- This morning, launch 23 of Falcon 9 Starlink 12-14 took place from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida. This was the 21st flight for the first stage booster. It previously launched CRS-26, OneWeb Launch 16, Intelsat IS-40e, O3b mPOWER, Ovzon 3, Eutelsat 36D, Turksat 6A, Maxar 2, SXM-9, and 11 Starlink missions. The booster landed on a drone ship A Shortfall of Gravitas in the Atlantic Ocean. 23 Starlinks were deployed, including 13 Direct to Cells.

This was the 450th completed Falcon mission! Per SpaceX's Kiko Dontchev (@TurkeyBeaver), "If we execute well, then Falcon should achieve 500 flights before the end of May!"

- Fresh off its trip to the Exuma in The Bahamas, Falcon 9 Booster B1080 returns to Port Canaveral via Signet Warhorse II and drone ship Just Read the Instructions. Beautiful video by JohnCn (@JConcilus).

- SpaceX is putting Tower A and the Chopsticks through testing before Booster 15 rolls to the Pab for Flight 8. Video by NSF (@NASASpaceflight).

- Hwy 4 road closure for the 26th of February, from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. CT, due to SpaceX flight testing activities! Alternative days on February 27th or the 28th for same time period.

- NOTAMs have been set for the Gulf of America and the Indian Ocean for Flight 8 on February 26th.

- Per an FCC document, Flight 9's Starship 35 will have the option of returning to the launch site for a catch! Pad B and Tower 2 will have needed to progress to the point of catch. Also for flight 9, users are posting that we will see the reuse Super Heavy Booster 14. If this is true, we will see both vehicles return to Starbase, utilizing both Pads and Towers. Booster will be caught at Pad A and Ship at Pab B.

- Spaceflight Now (@SpaceflightNow) spotted a brand new Falcon 9 booster roll past the press site at Kennedy Space Center.

- Yesterday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped its discrimination lawsuit SpaceX it filed in August 2023 under the Biden admin. They claimed SpaceX illegally refused to hire refugees and asylees from September 2018 to May 2022 by misusing export control laws. The DOJ moved to dismiss the case with prejudice.

- Starbase General Manager Kathy Lueders (@KathyLueders) visited the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley College of Engineering where she spoke to students about SpaceX, Starbase, and future career opportunities. "Thank you for the great questions and your interest in what is going on - right here in the RGV - at Starbase."

Countdown to 180 (22 - Falcon 9, 0 - Falcon Heavy, and 1 - Starship):

Launch 23! Friday, 21st of February, at 6:31 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 12-14 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 24! Saturday, 22nd of February, at 2:24 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 15-1 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 25! Sunday, 23rd of February, at 11:42 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 12-13 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 26! Wednesday, 26th of February, at 5:30 p.m. CT, Starship 34 Super Heavy Booster 15 (Flight 8) will launch from Orbital Launch Mount A at SpaceX Starbase, Texas. The booster will return to the launch site and caught by the Tower A. Starship 34 will do a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Launch 27! Wednesday, 26th of February, at 7:17 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 Nova-C IM-2 & Lunar Trailblazer will launch from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The booster will land on Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This is the second mission of Nova-C lunar lander developed and built by Intuitive Machines. This time it carries a NASA payload called PRIME-1 (Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1), which is to be the first demonstration of in-situ resource utilization on the Moon. PRIME-1 consists of two instruments: TRIDENT drill and Msolo mass spectrometer.
Launch 28! Sunday, 27th of February, at 9:52 p.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 12-20 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 29! Friday, 28th of February, at 7:10 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 SPHEREx & PUNCH will launch from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The booster will return to Vandenberg and land at Landing Zone 4 (LZ-4).

SPHEREx is a planned two-year astrophysics mission that will survey the sky in near-infrared light to explore the origins of the universe and the evolution of galaxies, while also searching for water and organic molecules in stellar nurseries and planet-forming disks around stars. It aims to collect data on over 300 million galaxies and more than 100 million stars within our Milky Way, providing insights into the conditions necessary for life.
NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) consists of four suitcase-sized satellites, which will focus on the Sun’s outer atmosphere (the corona) and how it generates the solar wind. The spacecraft also will track coronal mass ejections – large eruptions of solar material that can drive large space weather events near Earth – to better understand their evolution and develop new techniques for predicting such eruptions.

Launch 27! TBD, Falcon 9 NROL-57 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. This is the eighth 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 BORING COMPANY:

- Today, the Boring Company is hosting their Vegas Open House event at 6:00 p.m. PT. You had to submit a request, explain why you are interested, and hope to be invited. If you are attending let us know how it was.

■ NEURALINK: N/A...

■ STARLINK:

- Yesterday, SpaceX Starlink Managing Director Rebecca Hunter met with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet and Deputy Prime Minister Sun Chanthol at the Peace Palace in Phnom Penh during the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC). PEr Rebecca, SpaceX has set a goal to strengthen relations with the Government of Cambodia and plans to learn more about the current situation and investment environment. She added that Cambodia is one of SpaceX’s priority investment targets in 2025.

- Demand is high, so Christian Adriaque Gaveaux of GCFI is bringing Starlink V4s and Minis how ever he can to Bangui, the capital and largest city of the Central African Republic.

- Inflight Reporter Grace Hardy was invited to Riga in Latvia for airBaltic's launch of Starlink on the A220-300.

- SpaceX warned Starlink users today about phishing scams using fake emails and texts from “Starlink LLC” or “StarlinkService” to steal personal and financial data. Legitimate messages only come from “@starlink.com,” and users should verify suspicious contacts via starlink.com/account or support.

■ X:

- X posted an article ensuring authentic discourse for the German Federal Election on February 23rd. X is collaborating with German authorities, using Community Notes with nearly 40,000 contributors in Germany to combat misinformation, enforcing a civic integrity policy against election manipulation, providing a 24/7 reporting line for authorities, and training political parties on safety tools.

- A German regional court has granted X's request to remove the the judge who ordered the platform to grant Democracy Reporting International and Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte unrestricted access to real-time user post data for research ahead of Germany’s federal election, citing the EU’s Digital Services Act. X argued the decision violates German constitutional due process rights, particularly due to the judge’s failure to recuse himself despite previously working for Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte.

■ xAI:

- xAI has filed paperwork to get work started on the gray water facility with an accelerated timetable to build. CERAFILTEC, a German filtration company, will collaborate with xAI to construct the ceramic membrane bioreactor (MBR).

■ DOGE:

- Per DOGE's Christopher Stanley (@cstanley), "Just now leaving work. Caring and Competence."

- Today, DOGE announced the cancellation of 95 federal contracts, saving approximately $115 million with a ceiling value of $235 million. This included two United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) contracts: a $265,000 food and nutrition service 3-day leadership retreat in Atlanta and a $30,000 Malaysia study tour facilitation.

- DOGE stated that the U.S. General Services Administration (USGSA) sold the historic Webster School building at 940 H Street NW in Washington, D.C.'s Penn Quarter for $4,138,000. Acquired via condemnation in 2003, the red brick building, vacant and boarded up since, accrued $24 million in deferred maintenance and liabilities.

■ ELON NEWS:

- "This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy!" Elon was presented a Golden Chainsaw by Argentine President Javier Milei backstage at CPAC. Inscribed on it is "Viva la libertad, carajo." Spanish for "Long live liberty, damn it."

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