Tropic

Tesla: a world of amazing abundance. SpaceX: making life multiplanetary. Same dream, two companies, one future worth watching. That's why I follow both, minus the fluff.

SpaceX has put a price on its Starbase computing plans. A City of Starbase public notice says SpaceX proposes to construct, own and operate "a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility" on about 444 acres between Boca Chica Blvd and the Port of Brownsville, with roughly $24 billion in estimated investment for the initial phases alone. The detail I'd focus on is the pairing. The notice names the power plant first and treats it and the compute as one project, owned and run by SpaceX. My read, and it's my interpretation rather than anything the notice says, is that electricity has become the real bottleneck for big AI buildouts, and SpaceX is choosing to make its own power instead of building around someone else's timeline. For scale, $24 billion over 444 acres works out to about $54 million per acre, and the notice says later phases and expansions could follow. What it leaves out matters too. There's no megawatt figure, no chip count, no construction schedule, no word on whether the compute serves Grok, Starlink or something else, and no terms for the tax break. Nothing has been approved yet. The Starbase City Commission takes up a property tax abatement and a related economic development agreement at a public hearing on December 9.

@cb_doge That room had two different decisions to make: whether Starship was healthy enough to enter orbit, and whether it should stay there for the full mission. After a vacuum Raptor shut down early, controllers checked the engines needed for later burns before approving orbital insertion. They deployed all 26 Starlink V3 satellites, then shortened the mission out of caution over the engine issue. That's meaningful progress without pretending it was a clean flight: Starship delivered useful payload and returned, but the engine anomaly still matters. For me, the next test is repeatability. One orbital delivery establishes what Starship can do. Repeating it without shortening the mission starts establishing how dependable that capability is, and whether customers can plan around it.

"Grok Bot fixes for improved token efficiency and smarter behavior are underway" Elon this morning. He gave no ship date and did not say weekly limits or plan prices would change. The work is in progress, not a finished update.

@niccruzpatane I agree Cybercab looks likely to be much more profitable per car than Model Y or Model 3. My point isn't that those models overtake it—the comparison leaves out their recurring FSD and Premium Connectivity income. Compare both sides over an illustrative 5 years. Using 75% FSD adoption as a proxy from Tesla's North American delivery sign-ups—not Model Y/3 retention data—continuous subscriptions at an unchanged $99/month would add $4,455 average receipts per car alongside Model Y's $9K sale gross profit. Premium Connectivity at $99/year adds another $495 per paying subscriber over 5 years. Its uptake is separate; this doesn't assume everyone buys both. Cybercab's $400–500K implies $0.80–$1/mile if earned over 500K miles, but the years behind that projection aren't stated. I'd still expect Cybercab to be the bigger earner—the question is how much bigger over those same 5 years, counting the other models' recurring income too.

Under 0.9 seconds to 60. That's Tesla's listed 0-60 for Roadster Thrust. Tesla's official configurations post also lists Performance under 1.6 seconds and Rocket under 0.59, with rear-mounted cold-gas thrusters on Thrust.

How about an eight-seater SUV for larger families?

127,566 passengers in four days. That's how many riders The Boring Company says Vegas Loop carried between 14 stations during SEMA Show 2026 in Las Vegas, Nov 3 to 6. Roughly 32,000 a day, underground, in Teslas. 👀

Musk says upcoming efficiency improvements will allow a 40 kWh Cybercab battery pack. He also says Tesla will make Cybercab in liquid silver. No rollout date given for either plan.

NASA selected SpaceX today for a lunar communications demonstration. The plan: launch communications satellites on Starship into the region between Earth and the Moon in 2028, helping develop networks for a future Moon Base.

"Like, oh, geez, it's like $80 per kilowatt hour." Elon in 2012 with Kevin Rose. Packs were assumed stuck at $600/kWh, so he priced the cobalt, nickel, aluminum and carbon on the London Metal Exchange instead. First principles over analogy.

"Expand to cover the major forms of terrestrial transport." Tesla's Master Plan Part Deux, 2016. It said autonomy would shrink buses and turn the bus driver into a fleet manager. Cybercab is one shape, not the only one.

🚨 Starship Flight 15 is targeting Friday, Nov 13 for the first ship catch. SpaceX VP Kiko Dontchev gave the date at UP.Summit. Plan: catch both Super Heavy and Ship 42 with the tower arms.

🚨 Adaptive Headlights: individual high-beam pixels dim to cut glare for oncoming cars. Tesla's Model 3 owner's manual: the beams also adjust through curves at night. Availability varies by vehicle, software, and market.

33 Raptor engines. 8,240 tf of thrust on Super Heavy. Elon just posted Starship flight maneuvers. Per SpaceX: 13 center engines are steerable; 20 ring the booster's aft end. Each Raptor puts out about 250 tf / 551 klbf.

"I think probably rent them." Elon today at the Baron Investment Conference, asked whether Tesla would rent or sell Optimus. Preferred path is renting. Manufacturing cost starts around $30,000 and trends toward $20,000.

"When we unveil the details of the Starmind computer next year, it will blow people's minds" Elon today on X. At Baron earlier: first StarMind computers co-designed with NVIDIA, launches starting around Q3 2027 — his best guess.

Tesla Semi: 2 Megachargers are now operational at the Port of Long Beach, California. Tesla Charging announced them as a private Semi for Business site, not a public charging stop.

Starlink is inviting creators to make a big-game ad with Grok Imagine. The brief: 30 seconds, English, using Grok Imagine for visuals and any character voices. A chance to be featured—not guaranteed airtime.

Starlink’s Router 4 is now shipping with V4 Kits in the U.S. and Canada on Residential 200 Mbps and Residential Max. The new development is availability: the previously announced Wi-Fi 7 router is now shipping with those kits.

"You stock and sell Starlink kits and other products. Starlink handles service, support, payments, user access, and connectivity." Official Starlink Retailer page is live for store applications.