Lifestyle
Space Hero Extraordinaire: Elon Musk
Anyone that can break the cycle of bureaucracy and nay-sayers to get a country focused on things that are super important, things like clean energy and planetary exploration, is a hero in my book. For Elon Musk and the few others like him, wanting something “too bad” isn’t a weakness because the very things you want require that kind of commitment to be attainable. The proof of that concept? Four words: “The Falcon has landed.”
Just Another Dreamer
When I was a kid, I wanted nothing more in the world than to be an astronaut. I just knew it was my “calling”. I fed my space addiction as much as the school’s library would allow me to, and I couldn’t even fathom why every other kid in my grade didn’t want the same thing. I still remember laughing when one of them said he didn’t know who Neil Armstrong was, thinking it was a joke, and then being completely floored when he asked me why he should care about some “old” dude.
Columbia Commander Eileen Collins by NASA on The Commons is provided with no known copyright restrictions.
I was a total geek. I have no problem admitting that. I had even managed to convince my parents to send me to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama where I was selected to be my session’s shuttle commander. This was years before Eileen Collins had become the first female shuttle commander, so it was a big deal to me.
One day, another student told me that I would never become an astronaut because I wanted it “too bad”. I still hate that she was right, but I really can’t hate the reasons why it came to be true. Genetics are genetics, and not meeting a five-foot-four threshold combined with not having twenty-twenty vision are more or less non-starters for the space cowboy wannabes out there. Then life happened, I went down another path (or seven), and the shuttle program was shut down before I ever got the opportunity to see a launch in person.
Mars and Musk for the “Win”
Apollo 8 Liftoff View by Project Apollo Archive is provided as part of the public domain.
When I finally made it to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it was the same week the very last shuttle had landed. As I stood in the bleachers where hundreds of others had sat to watch rockets take to the sky, gazing out at the launch pad that had held so much human spirit on it, I suddenly felt it again. The “calling”, renewed now with a slightly different purpose. Then I turned to my mostly disinterested brother and said, “Mike, this is my manifesto. One day, I’m going to be part of the effort that takes man to Mars. I got here too late for the moon and too late for the shuttle, but I’m not gonna give up. It’s too much a part of who I am, even today.” He laughed at me, of course, and probably rolled his eyes, but I wasn’t watching him. I was dreaming again.
The Final Shuttle by Brent Newhall is licensed under CC by 2.0.
That’s where Elon Musk came in for me. Cool rich guy does cool stuff with his money in an attempt to go cool places with his rockets, right? No, not really. It wasn’t that simple. I will even admit it took me a fairly long time to actually follow what he was doing. The words “commercial” and “space” just didn’t really mesh well together in my head. What could a business mentality really bring to the spirit of human space exploration that was pure enough to be worthy?
It took an interview with Elon on an episode of StarTalk Radio, hosted by Neil DeGrasse Tyson (your personal astrophysicist), to finally “get” what was special about him. This guy’s main concern in life was advancing humanity. It really seemed to me that money was a means to an end for him, not the end itself, and that was something I could respect in a big way. After that, it didn’t take very long for fascination to set in, and now I consider him to be one of my heroes.
OnInnovation Interview: Elon Musk by OnInnovation is licensed under CC by ND 2.0.
“Hero” is a word that tends to be thrown around a lot, but I think in this case it is definitely deserved. It’s about breaking the cycle. The space industry is heavy with bureaucracy, inefficiency that drives high costs, and “big guys” happy to stand in the way of any other “guys” hoping to get in on the action. New technology means less job security for those doing things the way it has always been done, and long-standing relationships between the “big guys” and NASA have kept the “little guys” focused mostly on space tourism rather than pure scientific pursuit or pushing the boundaries of what can be done and where we can go.
Elon Musk: Space Hero Extraordinaire
Enter Elon Musk with SpaceX. He decides he’s going to launch rockets that are better, cheaper, flown more often, and with Mars as the ultimate goal. Shockingly, it doesn’t entirely even matter to him whether he succeeds or not. It’s just that important and must be tried. He didn’t get into the space business to make money; he got in for sake of all of us.
Exploration Imagery by NASA on The Commons is provided with no known copyright restrictions.
To be fair, Elon is not entirely unique in his desire to explore other planets, especially Mars. I remember watching an IMAX film during my week at Space Camp that had fantastic visuals explaining how we could terraform our red neighbor. I even remember thinking, “Oh, great! We do have a plan.” In reality though, we didn’t have a plan, or at least didn’t until Elon’s effect inspired people to demand one.
Anyone that can break the cycle of bureaucracy and nay-sayers to get a country focused on things that are super important, things like clean energy and planetary exploration, is a hero in my book. For Elon Musk and the few others like him, wanting something “too bad” isn’t a weakness because the very things you want require that kind of commitment to be attainable. The proof of that concept? Four words:
CRS-8 first stage landing by SpaceX is part of the public domain.
“The Falcon has landed.”
So that’s my angle, my two cents – whatever you want to call it. With SpaceX and Elon taking so much initiative, our future in the final frontier is finally happening again, and I am excited to both have the opportunity to watch everything unfold and to share my thoughts as it happens. I do plan on joining the effort directly, but more on that later. For now, the headlines are filled with the “next steps”, and there’s much to be said about them.
Lifestyle
NTSB findings on fatal Tesla crash tell a very different story
The NTSB confirmed the driver, not Tesla’s FSD, caused the fatal Texas house crash.
The National Transportation Safety Board released preliminary findings Wednesday confirming that a Tesla driver, not the vehicle’s software, caused a fatal crash in Katy, Texas in June. The driver, 44-year-old Michael Butler, had engaged Full Self-Driving Supervised mode on Rose Hollow Lane, a residential street with a 30 mph speed limit, before manually overriding the system by pressing the accelerator pedal all the way to 100%. Data recovered from the 2025 Tesla Model 3 showed the vehicle was traveling over 70 miles per hour when it struck a home and killed 76-year-old Martha Avila, who was inside. Weather was clear, the road was dry, and it was daylight.
Texas man charged in fatal Tesla crash where he blamed Autopilot
Butler told authorities he had passed out at the wheel. But security camera footage obtained by the NTSB told a different story, and showed the car accelerating through an intersection before leaving the road entirely. Police also found that Butler’s phone had Google searches including the terms “Tesla FSD not aggressive enough 2026” and “Tesla FSD too timid,” raising serious questions about how he was using the system before the crash. Butler has since been charged with manslaughter. The victim’s family has filed a lawsuit against both Butler and Tesla, alleging negligence.
The NTSB findings aligned directly with what Tesla VP of AI Software Ashok Elluswamy had already stated publicly on X in the weeks after the crash, writing that “the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100%.” The data confirmed his account.
Yup. In this case, the driver manually overrode self-driving by pressing the accelerator all the way to 100% of the accel pedal in this residential area. They reached a speed of 73 mph during the crash, and had the accelerator pressed even after the crash.
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) June 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s Texas ranch to showcase the lifelong work that changed the world
Elon Musk is building a product gallery at his Texas ranch spanning his lifelong inventions.
Elon Musk took to X earlier today, noting “Am putting together a product gallery at my ranch in Texas.” in response to a resurfaced famous quote from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s wherein he draw parallels of the Tesla CEO to legendary physicist Albert Einstein.
Dimon made the remark at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland back in January 2025, telling CNBC at the time, “SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, I mean, the guy is our Einstein.” The remark seemingly ended a long-time feud between the two high profile execs.
While details are thin about the exact location of Elon Musk’s Texas ranch and any pending projects that would serve as a gallery and homage to his portfolio of revolutionary product inventions spanning from 1984 to 2025, land acquisition records point to roughly a location of several thousand acres in Bastrop County, east of Austin near the Colorado River and held through an LLC called Horse Ranch LLC that’s managed by Musk’s longtime personal friend and family wealth manager Jared Birchall. Birchall also serves as the CEO of Neuralink.
Tesla’s “ecological paradise” in Giga Texas may be larger than expected
The broader Bastrop County footprint surrounding the ranch has grown significantly. Entities tied to Musk have accumulated approximately 2,000 acres in Bastrop County as of mid-2026, up from 700 acres earlier in the year, with possibly as much as 6,000 acres acquired in total across Bastrop and Travis counties based on deed records.
No completion date for the gallery has been announced and Musk has not confirmed whether it will be open to the public. As Teslarati has reported, SpaceX just completed the largest IPO in history raising $75 billion, a milestone that makes this particular moment in Musk’s career a natural inflection point for looking back at what he has built through the years.
Am putting together a product gallery at my ranch in Texas https://t.co/xQf5FRy4uz
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2026
Starting with Blastar, a simple space shooter game Musk coded at 12 years old and sold to a South African magazine for $500. From there the timeline moves through a commercial career that started with Zip2 in 1995, a city guide software company sold to Compaq for roughly $300 million in 1999. That was followed by X.com in 1999, which merged with Confinity to become PayPal, acquired by eBay in 2002 for $1.5 billion. SpaceX came in 2002, Tesla in 2003, SolarCity in 2006, the Supercharger network in 2012, Neuralink in 2016, The Boring Company in 2016, OpenAI co-founded in 2015, X acquired in 2022, xAI in 2023, Optimus in 2024, the Cybercab in 2026, and most recently SpaceXAI following the SpaceX and xAI merger. The gallery will also likely include items that blur the line between product and cultural artifact, among them The Boring Company’s Not-a-Flamethrower from 2018, Tesla Short Shorts from 2020, and Burnt Hair perfume released under X in 2022.
Lifestyle
Tesla makes the cut on California’s newest EV Rebate program
California just signed a $270 million EV rebate into law and it starts this summer.
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 168 into law on Monday, July 13, 2026, creating a $270 million EV rebate program that delivers money directly at the dealership rather than as a tax credit applied months later. The program, called MyFirstEV, is funded equally by California’s state budget and participating automakers, with each contributing $135.5 million to make the math work.
The timing is directly tied to the loss of federal support when the $7,500 federal EV tax credit ended, removing the most significant consumer incentive that had driven EV adoption in the U.S. California, which accounts for roughly one-third of all EVs sold nationally, moved to fill that gap with a state-level replacement.
The rebate structure is straightforward. First-time EV buyers can receive $3,500 off any new battery-electric vehicle with an MSRP up to $50,000. Used EVs priced at $25,000 or below qualify for a $1,750 rebate. The credit is applied at the point of sale, which removes the friction of the old federal system where buyers had to wait for tax season to see the benefit. The program goes live later this summer, with the California Air Resources Board expected to release full participation details next month.
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
For Tesla buyers, the implications are mixed. The Tesla Model 3 RWD at $42,490 and the Model 3 Long Range at $47,490 both fall under the $50,000 cap and would qualify for the full $3,500 rebate for first-time buyers. The Model Y, which starts at $44,990 after Tesla’s recent price adjustment, also qualifies. The Model X, Model S, and Cybertruck all exceed the cap and receive no benefit. As Teslarati has reported, the program also includes a carve-out exempting California-based automakers like Rivian and Lucid from the price cap entirely, a provision that puts Tesla at a disadvantage since it relocated its headquarters to Texas in 2021.
Other qualifying vehicles include the Chevrolet Equinox EV, Ford Mustang Mach-E, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, and Volkswagen ID.4.
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