Elon Musk

Running SpaceX's dual-track launch strategy

SpaceX broke its own turnaround record on August 15, launching two Falcon 9 rockets 38 minutes apart from Florida and California. One carried Globalstar satellites from Cape Canaveral; the other flew a classified Space Force mission from Vandenberg, capping a stretch that included the year's 51st West Coast launch and 94th Falcon 9 flight overall.

Updated Aug 16

SPCX hit an all-time low of $107.01 on July 28, down 53% from the June 16 peak; on August 4 he told analysts SpaceX projects a $100 billion annualized revenue run rate by year-end and moved the $1 trillion revenue target forward to 2030

SpaceX's first lockup wave freed 911.5 million insider shares on August 6, more than doubling the stock's tradable float to 11.8% of shares outstanding from 4.9%. SPCX touched a new intraday low of $105.11, below the July 28 record of $107.01. Heavy selling never showed up: shares reversed and traded higher for much of the day, at one point up as much as 6%.

Updated Aug 6

Plaintiff; lost the first request to pause the law

In 2024, while six months pregnant, Minnesota's Molly Kelley found out a family friend had used a nudification website to make explicit images of her. He did the same to roughly 80 other women.

Updated Aug 2

Leading SpaceX through IPO preparations while overseeing Starship development

Starship completed its 13th test flight on July 24, 2026, deploying 20 Starlink V3 satellites and achieving the vehicle's first fully intact Ship splashdown in the Indian Ocean. The Super Heavy booster had a harder-than-planned water landing: only 5 of its 13 engines were firing at impact. SpaceX called the overall mission a success.

Updated Jul 26

Facing questions on whether record volume came at the cost of profit

Tesla and Alphabet reported second-quarter results after U.S. markets closed on July 22. They are the first of the seven mega-cap tech firms Wall Street calls the Magnificent Seven to open the season.

Updated Jul 22

Driving the robotaxi rollout he has promised for years

In western Miami-Dade County, you can now open an app and ride in a Tesla with nobody in the driver's seat. On July 6, 2026, Tesla began running its Robotaxi service on public Miami streets with no human safety monitor in the car. Tesla shares closed up 6.7% that day — lifted by the Miami launch and a Q2 delivery report that beat analyst estimates by about 18%.

Updated Jul 7

Operating dominant LEO constellation with 10,200+ satellites and 10 million subscribers

In December 2025, a newly formed Chinese state institute filed for 200,000 satellites with the ITU (International Telecommunication Union), claiming spectrum priority for the largest constellation ever proposed. Under ITU rules, early filers get priority on orbital slots and radio frequencies—buying options in the race against American dominance of low Earth orbit.

Updated Jul 6

Lobbied Trump to weaken the order

Trump signed a voluntary framework on June 2 asking frontier labs to share their newest models with federal agencies for up to 30 days before release. Within ten days, the government had gone further. A June 12 export control directive forced Anthropic to kill worldwide access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5, its two newest models, after the government said it had found a jailbreak in the more capable one.

Updated Jun 26

His company is the rebuild's marquee addition

After the closing bell on Friday, June 26, FTSE Russell finished rebuilding the US stock indexes that guide trillions of dollars in investment funds. For the first time since 1989, it will now do this twice a year instead of once.

Updated Jun 26

Selling AI compute through SpaceX's Colossus sites

SpaceX is best known for rockets. As of this year, one of its largest businesses is renting out computing power. On June 22, it signed a deal with Reflection AI, a startup that has not yet released a product, to supply Nvidia chips for $150 million a month through 2029. Run its full term, the contract is worth about $6.3 billion.

Updated Jun 23

Leading SpaceX's expansion into return logistics

SpaceX launched its first Starfall capsule from Cape Canaveral on June 23, 2026. The disk-shaped vehicle is built to bring up to 1,000 kilograms of cargo back from orbit and splash down in the Pacific. Until now, returning material from space meant small capsules carrying dozens of kilograms.

Updated Jun 23

Driving the acquisition; controls both buyer and the AI division it aims to strengthen

SpaceX went public on June 12 in the largest stock-market debut ever. Five days later, it agreed to spend $60 billion on Cursor, an AI coding tool barely three years old.

Updated Jun 18

Running the company building the constellation

On June 7, a Falcon 9 rose from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California carrying 23 satellites. Two were Starshield, the military version of Starlink. SpaceX said so out loud, which it rarely does.

Updated Jun 7

Set to receive 304 million shares pending legal resolution

In 2018, Tesla's board agreed to pay Musk stock options if he hit a string of growth targets, with a maximum theoretical value of about $56 billion—already the largest CEO pay package ever written. Eight years later, Tesla is actually moving to hand over the shares, now worth more than $100 billion.

Updated May 31

Managing Pentagon pricing tensions and SpaceX's Nasdaq IPO filing as Starlink's military role expands during the Iran conflict

SpaceX hit 50 dedicated Starlink launches before June 2026, roughly one every four days. The constellation has 10.3 million subscribers across 160 countries, 10,191 active satellites, and $10.6 billion in 2025 revenue. Starlink is SpaceX's only profitable division and the central asset in its pending Nasdaq IPO.

Updated May 31

Driving X's super app transformation; XChat delayed to April 23; facing regulatory scrutiny over X Money

Elon Musk spent $44 billion to buy Twitter in October 2022, telling investors it was 'an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.' Three and a half years later, that app is still taking shape—haltingly.

Updated May 31

Leading Tesla while managing xAI and other ventures; left DOGE in May 2025

Tesla delivered 358,023 vehicles in the first quarter of 2026 — roughly 8,000 fewer than Wall Street expected — while producing over 50,000 more cars than it sold. That growing gap between production and deliveries signals something automakers dread: cars sitting on lots because buyers aren't showing up. The miss marks at least the fifth quarter in which Tesla has underperformed analyst expectations since early 2024.

Updated May 30

Leading TeraFab initiative

Every company designing custom artificial intelligence chips today (Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft) pays someone else to manufacture them. Tesla just announced it will build and operate its own semiconductor fabrication plant, a $20 billion facility called TeraFab targeting the 2-nanometer process node, the most advanced manufacturing technology in existence. No company without decades of chipmaking experience has ever attempted this.

Updated May 30

Signed 'all lawful purposes' deal for Grok on classified systems

Anthropic's Claude became the first commercial AI model deployed on classified U.S. military networks in late 2024. Sixteen months later, the Defense Department designated Anthropic a "supply chain risk"—a label historically reserved for foreign adversaries—for refusing to permit Claude's use for mass surveillance of Americans or fully autonomous weapons.

Updated May 29

Driving X's transformation into financial services platform

Elon Musk founded X.com in 1999 with a vision of building an all-in-one financial services platform, though that company became PayPal and he was ousted as chief executive. Twenty-seven years later, he's trying again. X, the social network formerly known as Twitter, announced on February 14, 2026 that users will soon be able to trade stocks and cryptocurrency directly from their timelines through a feature called Smart Cashtags.

Updated May 29

Leading federal restructuring efforts

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau returned $21 billion to defrauded Americans over its 14-year existence. The agency that Elizabeth Warren built now faces major cuts (workforce down to 200 from 1,700, budget halved), though federal judges are blocking dismantling efforts.

Updated May 27

Active, increasingly focused on political activities

Since April 2024, Tesla has lost more than a dozen senior executives: the heads of batteries, supercharging, North American sales (twice in a year), and operations across North America and Europe. Joe Ward -- who joined as a logistics intern in 2010 -- now runs global sales after Raj Jegannathan's abrupt departure. The exodus has left Elon Musk overseeing an unusually thin executive bench as the company tries to stabilize vehicle deliveries, defend margins against Chinese competitors, and ship the long-promised robotaxi and Optimus programs.

Updated May 27

Central figure in Starlink policy decisions

Ukraine's military has depended on Starlink satellite internet since the first week of Russia's 2022 invasion. On February 5, 2026, SpaceX cut off Russian forces from that network, collapsing command systems and halving daily assault operations within hours.

Updated May 27

Opposing Spain's regulations

Spain became the first European country to announce a ban on social media for children under 16, joining Australia, France, and Denmark. At the World Governments Summit in Dubai on February 3, 2026, Sánchez unveiled five measures. These include mandatory age verification systems that go beyond simple checkboxes and criminal liability for tech executives who fail to remove illegal content.

Updated May 27

Managing IPO preparation ahead of June 4 roadshow start; S-1 confirms 79% voting control with ~42% equity via dual-class structure, making him the sole person who can remove himself as CEO

In February 2026, SpaceX bought xAI for $250 billion, the largest acquisition in corporate history. By mid-May, all 11 original xAI co-founders had left, and more than 50 SpaceXAI researchers and engineers had departed for Meta and Thinking Machines Lab.

Updated May 26

Summoned for voluntary questioning in Paris on April 20, 2026

French prosecutors raided X's Paris offices on February 3, 2026, and summoned Elon Musk for questioning—a first for a major social media platform owner in Europe. What began as a complaint about biased algorithms in January 2025 has expanded into a criminal probe. The investigation covers child sexual abuse material, sexually explicit deepfakes, Holocaust denial, and X's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok.

Updated May 26

Active company leadership

Two years ago, Neuralink implanted a coin-sized chip in Noland Arbaugh's brain—the first human to receive the company's Telepathy device. As of January 28, 2026, twenty-one people across four countries use Neuralink implants to control computers, phones, and robotic arms with their thoughts; several now exceed the cursor-control speed of able-bodied people using a mouse.

Updated May 26

Positioning Tesla as AI and robotics company

The four largest cloud providers—Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet, and Amazon—are tracking toward over $720 billion in combined AI infrastructure spending for 2026, up sharply from $410 billion in 2025. All four reported first-quarter results on April 29, 2026. Microsoft delivered the clearest signal: $77.7 billion in revenue (up 18% year-over-year), Azure cloud growth of 40% (above its 37% guidance), and earnings per share of $4.13 versus analyst estimates of $3.67.

Updated May 26

Expanding robotaxi to Dallas and Houston; Cybercab in production

By April 2026, Tesla had expanded its unsupervised robotaxi service to Dallas and Houston, bringing the combined Texas fleet to about 573 vehicles. Newly unredacted crash reports tell a messier story: two of the 17 Austin incidents involved remote teleoperators who drove vehicles into a fence and a construction barricade.

Updated May 23

Expanding Tesla robotaxi operations, FSD subscription model

For a century, auto insurers priced risk based on the driver: age, driving record, location. Lemonade's January 2026 partnership with Tesla is the first major attempt to price risk based on which entity—human or software—is actually controlling the vehicle. Tesla owners using Full Self-Driving get a 50% rate reduction on miles driven with the system engaged, a discount five times larger than Tesla's own insurance offers. The product launched in Arizona on January 26, 2026.

Updated May 22

Lawsuit dismissed May 18, 2026; appeal expected

OpenAI filed a confidential draft registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Friday, May 22, 2026. The filing is the first formal step toward a public listing that could value the ChatGPT maker above $1 trillion.

Updated May 22

Facing multi-jurisdictional enforcement

For decades, Western democracies debated whether to regulate social media platforms. The UK just stopped debating—and now the United States is joining the fight. After Grok, Elon Musk's AI chatbot, generated an estimated one nonconsensual sexualized image per minute posted directly to X, regulators on both sides of the Atlantic took action. On January 15, X announced it will geoblock Grok from creating images of people in revealing clothing in jurisdictions where it's illegal. This came one day after California Attorney General Rob Bonta opened an investigation into xAI, calling the platform 'a breeding ground for predators.' Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer told Parliament that X is 'acting to ensure full compliance,' having removed over 600 accounts and censored 3,500 content items. The alternative: fines up to 10% of global revenue or a complete platform ban.

Updated May 21

Defending Grok, dismissing government concerns as attacks on free speech

AI image generators have been creating non-consensual intimate imagery since 2017. No government had blocked one until January 10, 2026, when Indonesia became the first to shut off access to xAI's Grok.

Updated May 20

Developing competing cortical vision implant called Blindsight

Stanford researchers implanted a chip smaller than a Tic Tac under the retinas of 38 blind patients. A year later, 27 could read again, including some who read entire books. The PRIMA device, published October 20, 2025 in the New England Journal of Medicine, is the first prosthetic to restore functional vision to people with macular degeneration—the leading cause of irreversible blindness.

Updated May 19

Grok AI platform selected for Pentagon-wide deployment

Trump wants to spend $1.5 trillion on defense in 2027—a jaw-dropping 66% jump from this year's $901 billion. This would be the largest single-year defense increase since the Korean War.

Updated May 19

Amplifying white genocide claims, influencing US policy

President Trump cut all US aid to South Africa on February 7, 2025—$440 million annually, most for HIV treatment—over a land law allowing seizure without compensation. He called it discrimination against white farmers.

Updated May 19

Leading DOGE advisory role in Trump administration

Mark Zuckerberg banned Donald Trump after January 6th, calling the risks of keeping him on Facebook too great. Four years later, on the ban's anniversary, Zuckerberg killed Meta's entire U.S. fact-checking program, amid a Mar-a-Lago visit, a million-dollar inauguration donation, and elevation of a Bush-era Republican to Meta's top policy role.

Updated May 19

Driving USAID shutdown and federal aid cuts

The United States pledged $2 billion for UN humanitarian aid on December 29, down from as much as $17 billion annually—an 88% cut. Within hours of his January inauguration, Trump froze nearly all foreign assistance, dismantled USAID entirely by July, and warned UN agencies they must 'adapt, shrink or die.'

Updated May 18

Defending H-1B visas amid MAGA backlash, December 2024-January 2025

On December 29, 2025, the Department of Homeland Security published its final rule replacing the H-1B lottery with wage-weighted selection. It takes effect February 27, 2026.

Updated May 16

Platform fined €120M by EU, under ongoing DSA investigations

On December 23, 2024, Secretary of State Marco Rubio banned five Europeans from entering the United States—including the EU's former top tech regulator and leaders of anti-disinformation groups. The charge: pressuring American tech companies to censor lawful speech. One sanctioned figure, Imran Ahmed, holds a U.S. green card and now faces potential arrest and deportation.

Updated May 16

NASA’s biggest contractor remains central to Artemis and LEO access

One day after his 67–30 confirmation, Jared Isaacman was sworn in on Dec. 18, 2025 as NASA's 15th administrator—walking directly into a White House-driven acceleration campaign that now has his name on the clock, not just the contracts.

Updated May 15

Scaling Starlink into a telecom infrastructure partner, not just an ISP

Airtel Africa just made a classic telecom promise, "coverage everywhere," with a very un-classic tool: Starlink satellites acting like cell towers in space. If it works, the places where Airtel's network map turns blank won't be silent anymore.

Updated May 15

Running the market leader Amazon is trying to dislodge—while also launching some Amazon satellites

At 3:28 a.m. ET on December 16, ULA lit an Atlas V and pushed 27 Amazon Leo broadband satellites into orbit. It's another clean launch in a campaign that's starting to look like a metronome: stack satellites, light rocket, repeat.

Updated May 15

Platform fined under the DSA; publicly attacking EU regulators and weighing legal appeals

The European Union is cracking down on U.S.-based Big Tech using the Digital Services Act, the Digital Markets Act, and long-standing competition and privacy rules. Since 2023, Brussels designated six platforms as 'gatekeepers,' imposed obligations on core services, and opened proceedings against X, Google, Apple and Meta for monopolistic conduct, opaque algorithms, deceptive design, and failures to police harmful content.

Updated May 10

Challenging EU enforcement and facing ongoing DSA probes

On December 5, 2025, the European Commission issued its first non‑compliance decision under the Digital Services Act, fining X €120 million for misleading users with paid blue checkmarks, failing to provide a transparent advertising repository, and obstructing researcher access to public data. Regulators concluded the subscription-based 'verified' badge is deceptive because anyone can buy it without meaningful identity checks, and the platform's ad library and data-access rules prevent independent scrutiny of scams, influence operations, and systemic online risks.

Updated May 9