S.E. Robinson, Jr.

Elon Chron: Your 24hr Musk Companies Update (Patreon)

Published:

2025-02-28 21:04:37

Imported:

2026-06

Content

28th of February, 2025

"This is the most absurd outcome I could possibly image..." - Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

■ TESLA $TSLA ($293.04, +3.94%):

- "Thank you Tesla Charging! Let’s do over 100 locations. Consider all sites approved!" Steak 'n Shake (@SteaknShake) posted this yesterday. After the Tesla Charging account posted that 6 sites are already signed for and will begin construction with over 20 more ready for design review. "Let’s lock in those layouts." So, get ready for 100 more Steak 'n Shake Superchargers! Pic by the great and powerful Zack (@BLKMDL3).

- The new Eneco Tesla Megapack site in Ville-sur-Haine, Belgium, was officially inaugurated and is the largest in the country. About 20 kilometers from the French border, this battery has a storage capacity of 200 MWh and a capacity of 50 MW. In addition to this battery project, Eneco will control a battery of BSTOR and Duferco in Belgium and trade electricity on the markets. Another battery under construction, in La Louvière, Belgium, will have a capacity of 140 MWh and a capacity of 50 MW.

- We all know that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) is getting a donated fleet of Cybertrucks from Ben and Felicia Horowitz. Now we know who will retrofit them. Per Ben Schaffer, CEO of @UnpluggedTesla, "Well, it's official, thanks to Sheriff McMahill's post today. On behalf of UPFIT we are thrilled to be building a fleet of Cybertrucks for Las Vegas Metropolitan Police. This project is next-level and will be the most badass Cybertrucks we've ever built. I'm excited for the public to see this later this year." Pic shows LVMPD Chief Mike Gennaro and his team at the UPFIT facility today.

- Felix Hamer (@electricfelix) spotted a Model S in Amsterdam with LIDAR mounted on top for fleet validation. Hopefully FSD soon. Per Elon, "We are waiting for regulatory approval."

- The J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Vehicle Dependability Study shows Tesla scoring 209 problems per 100 vehicles (PP100) after three years. This is an improvement, but above the industry average of 202 PP100. Tesla nows ranks ahead of Ram, Mercedes, Acura, and Chrysler, but behind Lexus, which led with 135 PP100.

- A Tesla Supercharger is on its way to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with permits for a 16-stall setup at the Wawa on Sunrise Blvd. What’s cool about this project is they are tearing out 8 old gas pumps and swapping in 8 of the 16 new charging stalls. H/T MarcoRP (@MarcoRPi1).

- You have three days left to lease a Model 3 for as low as $249/mo. Ends in the U.S. on March 3rd.

- Model S Long Range AWD w/ 19" Tempest Wheels has increased range on the US website. It is now 410 miles, up from 402 miles.

- Some more pics from Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day at Tesla.

- Tesla is now facing a class action lawsuit in Australia from law firms Woodsford and JGA Saddler. They are alleging misrepresentation of Autopilot, battery range, and self-driving hardware in Model 3 and Model Y vehicles manufactured since 2021 with Tesla Vision. The lawsuit claims "phantom braking" from unexpected emergency braking increases accident risks, the advertised range exceeds real-world performance, and the Hardware 3 computer is inadequate for Full Self-Driving despite Tesla's claims since 2016.

FLYOVERS (flight links in sources section):

Giga Texas: Brad Sloan, 27th of February, '25.

■ SPACEX:

- Super Heavy Booster 16 rolled to Massey's Outpost last night! Be on the lookout for cryo-testing. Beautiful pic by Carlos, the Starbase Surfer (@cnunezimages).

- An early morning Hwy 4 road closure is set for March 2nd at 1:00 a.m. CT. for transportation between the factory and the pad. Should be for Starship 34.

- Last night Booster 15 was re-crowned with his Hot Stage Ring. Pic by Starship Gazer (@StarshipGazer).

- Yesterday evening at the SpaceX McGregor test facility, what many have dubbed the Block 2 Super Heavy Header Tank Test Article was filled with cryogenics! H/T Niall-Ian Anderson (@INiallAnderson).

- More Pad B Chopsticks testing. As I stated before, FCC filing is calling for a Starship catch for Flight 9!

- Per SpaceX's COO Gwynne Shotwell (@Gwynne_Shotwell), "Intuitive Machines’ lander is on its way to the Moon after Falcon 9 successfully deployed Athena into a lunar transfer orbit... Best of luck IM's Athena, AstroForge's Odin, NASA JPL’s Lunar Trailblazer, Epic Aerospace's Chimera GEO 1 on the remainder of your missions!"

- At the Port of Long Beach, in the fog, Matt Hartman (@ShorealoneFilms) caught 3 SpaceX Falcon 9s and a Crew Dragon! Of note, SpaceX will begin Dragon recovery missions on the west coast starting this year. Recovery vessel Shannon has already made the trek from Florida to California.

Countdown to 180 (25 - Falcon 9, 0 - Falcon Heavy, and 1 - Starship):

Launch 27! Sunday, 2nd of March, at 9:24 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 28! Sunday, 2nd of March, at 7:09 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).
Launch 29! Monday, 3rd of March, 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 30! Wednesday, 5th of March, at 1:00 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 12-21 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 31! Thursday, 6th of March, at 10:39 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 Transporter 13 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).
Launch 32! Friday, 7th of March, at 9:09 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 Starlink 12-16 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 33! Friday, 7th of March, at 6:00 p.m. PT, Falcon 9 Starlink 11-7 will launch from Space Launch Complex 4E (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. The booster will land of droneship Of Course I Still Love You in the Pacific Ocean.

■ THE BORING COMPANY:

- Jeff Grossman is in Las Vegas for the NKBA/KBIS shows. "Got to experience the Tesla Loop, pretty cool if I do say so myself. I needed the relieve from all that walking."

■ NEURALINK: N/A...

■ STARLINK:

- SpaceX's Ted Malaska (@TedMalaska) is in Alaska is modernizing the FAA communications infrastructure, improving weather information distribution to pilots, and the ability for FAA to monitor the system. "Using Starlink and a solution provided by A&TT (@ATT) and Met Tel Corp.(@OneMetTel) we’ve upgraded the first Automated Weather Observing System in Alaska, over the next 30 days the FAA will evaluate performance of this new design."

- Starlink posted this video where they test satellite components like printed circuit boards in plasma chambers to simulate reentry, ensuring they burn up fully in Earth’s atmosphere. Link to

- Starlink announced they now have over 5 million customers in 125 countries. This up from 4.6 million in December. Starlink, on average, adds 6,780 new customers per day.

- The T-Connect team in Botswana bringing starlink to help communities during the floods. "When disaster struck, the T-Connect team stepped up. Connecting communities, one terminal at a time, we worked in collaboration with Starlink to bring high-speed internet to those displaced by flooding in Botswana - ensuring they stayed connected when it mattered most. This is what we do - creating real connections that make a difference."

■ X:

- "X Team Happy Hour!" Pic by X New York's Matthew Metelitz (@MattMetelitz).

- X Global Government Affairs (@GlobalAffairs) announced that U.S. Army Reserves Major Dustin Whidden’s suit against Form Energy has been successfully resolved. Form Energy discriminated against Major Whidden by firing him for his political beliefs. X was financially support this suit.

- For a limited time, X Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is giving businesses a $500 ad credit if they spend $250 on ads during Ramadan and Eid.

- X Japan CEO Ayumu Matsuyama (@ayumu_matsuyama) will be speaking for Marketing Week at the Tokyo Big Sight on April 4th. He will discuss how to use Grok in ad campaigns.

■ xAI:

- Jimmy Ba (@jimmybajimmyba) and the xAI Team at Palantir's DevCon. Jimmy spoke of building Grok and their quest to understand the universe. The others shared how they are working with Palantir at incredible speeds with Grok. Per Chad Wahlquist (@chadwahl) of Palantir, "99.98% cell accuracy and 97.5% document accuracy and this is not a benchmark, this is on real customer data. This was Grok2 as well.....so buckle up." Pics by Chad.

Per Jimmy, "This year we all see the finesse of post-training — a skill expression for sure. But, long forgotten pre-training still demands a high skill ceiling. From data curation to engineering training frameworks and mastering the science of scaling laws. There is subtle nuance at the deep end of the scaling curve."

- Brent (@BrentM_SpaceX) keeps saying they are up to something with these pics. What do you guys think it is?

■ DOGE:

- Elon and the Senate DOGE caucus.

- Joe Gebbia (@jgebbia), co-founder of Airbnb and new member of DOGE, posted, "Excited to share I’m bringing my designer brain and start-up spirit into the government. My first project at DOGE is improving the slow and paper-based retirement process." DOGE announced that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has fully digitized the federal retirement process. Processing time has been reduced from months to two days... though more work is needed. This addresses prior inefficiencies at the Iron Mountain facility.

■ ELON NEWS:

- "Just did a long Joe Rogan episode." Elon and Joe dropped the a new JRE Podcast. Link in the sources section.

- Elon via SpaceX filed a permit to build an Ad Astra Montessori School in Brownsville, Texas, at 48804 Boca Chica Blvd near Starbase. Phase 1 construction costing $20 million. The 34,365-square-foot school, serving students from infancy to grade 12, is set to begin construction in mid-April 2025 and finish by January 2026. This is a different address from the previous school near the Starbase Command Center. I cannot pinpoint the location though.

- Shivon Zilis (@shivon) and Elon announced their new son, Seldon Lycurgus. Congratulations!

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