Lifestyle
Elon Musk’s Neuralink to livestream special project update on July 16
Elon Musk’s Neuralink, the venture working to bridging the gap between potential superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) and the human brain itself, is finally providing an update on the research it’s been doing since its formation in 2016. The event will take place on July 16th in San Francisco for a select audience, and a live stream will be provided as well, according to the company’s official Twitter account.
“We’re having an event next Tuesday in San Francisco to share a bit about what we’ve been working on the last two years, and we’ve reserved a few seats for the internet,” the company posted. “It will also be livestreamed, for those who don’t have the chance to come!”
An update on Neuralink’s research activity was teased in September last year by Musk during a live interview. “I think [Neuralink will] have something interesting to announce in a few months that’s at least an order of magnitude better than anything else, probably better than anyone thinks is possible,” he revealed.
It will also be livestreamed, for those who don't have the chance to come!
— Neuralink (@neuralink) July 11, 2019
A long-form explainer on Neuralink’s purpose was posted by Tim Urban on Wait But Why in April 2017 after Musk gave him first-hand access to the company and its team; however, details beyond that have been scarce.
Some insight on the company has been gleaned from its job postings and permit filings in the last two years. In 2017, Neuralink filed paperwork to build an in-house machine shop and a biological testing laboratory for its facility in San Francisco. The enterprise also filed for a permit from the California Department of Public Health in April 2017, directly referencing the utilization of laboratory animals. While specifics are still missing, the permits at the very least confirm Neuralink is making progress in its endeavors as do their evolving job postings. The theme of the company’s employment needs has gradually shifted from experimental science, engineering, and fabrication to something more explicitly focused on one or a few particularly promising solutions.
In an interview on Axios last November, Musk hinted that Neuralink would first introduce microcontrollers to further advance computer-brain interface technology, i.e., possibly unveil an initial version of what will eventually become a “neural lace.” One of the concerns about the rise of AI is the role humans will have once it’s sufficiently advanced to no longer need our input. A neural lace would address this concern. “I don’t love the idea of being [an AI] house cat, but what’s the solution? I think one of the solutions that seem maybe the best is to add an AI layer,” Musk said during Code Conference 2016.
The technology being developed by Neuralink would theoretically allow us to integrate with computers to access and process information just as well as our AI counterparts. Essentially, our brains will have our very own AI in a cloud that our brains can synthesize with as needed. We already interface with our computers on a regular basis, so the jump from an external device to an internal one would seem to be a natural progression.
Musk also suggested memory functionality as an area for Neuralink to focus on, specifically for issues around Alzheimer’s, during his discussion on Axios. “It’s incredibly sad when a mother forgets her children, and that can be solved, too,” he noted. This concept is in line with marketable technology for therapy use that Musk has hinted at before during his discussions with Tim Urban. “We are aiming to bring something to market that helps with certain severe brain injuries (stroke, cancer lesion, congenital) in about four years,” he was quoted as saying.
Perhaps this therapeutic research will be included in the July 16th event. Or perhaps we’ll see something pulled straight out of science fiction, as he seems to have indicated last year. Both?
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s answer to Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey got way more specific
Elon Musk escalated his monthslong feud with Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey this week, pledging that his own AI video tool will produce a competing version before the year is out. Responding to a fan-made, AI-generated clip of the ancient epic, Musk wrote on X, “Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
In June, Musk quoted an xAI-shared trailer built entirely with Grok Imagine Video 1.5, a two-minute-plus reimagining of The Odyssey styled after a 1970s classical Hollywood epic, and predicted “full movies by the end of the year,” as Teslarati reported at the time. That trailer, built from 36 consistent shots by a single creator, was Musk’s proof of concept. This week’s pledge turns that prediction into a specific commitment, tied directly to Homer’s text rather than a generic demo.
Before this year ends, Grok Imagine will make a full-length movie of The Odyssey that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer https://t.co/bVHzUmY9WN
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2026
When a fan separately proposed that Musk fund a live-action alternative, to “give Mel Gibson $100 million to film an Odyssey adaptation with painstakingly historically accurate ships, armour, weapons, and casting, with all dialogue taken straight from the original poem and delivered in Homeric Greek,” Musk replied with two words: “I’m down.”
The Grok Imagine pledge lands as the tool’s underlying infrastructure has changed hands. Grok is no longer a standalone product, it folded into SpaceXAI after SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI closed in February, meaning the compute behind any Odyssey production traces back to the same Colossus supercomputers now bundled into SpaceX’s pitch to investors. Musk has separately said SpaceX’s own engineering data is being fed into the next major Grok training run, a two trillion parameter model he’s called the “2T run.”
Whether Grok Imagine can sustain a feature length narrative, rather than a series of impressive individual shots, remains the open question.
Cybertruck
Tesla Mobile App gets a new feature that wrap fans are going to love
Tesla’s Summer Update removes the USB drive step from customizing your car’s digital wrap design.
Tesla’s latest 2026 Summer Update quietly closes out one of the more tedious steps in personalizing a Tesla’s digital appearance. Uploading a custom wrap design used to require a USB drive. Now it doesn’t.
The feature is listed in Tesla’s release notes as “Send Custom Wraps from Mobile App.” The company described it plainly: “Skip the USB drive and upload a custom wrap of your car from the mobile app. Instructions for creating a custom wrap here: github.com/teslamotors/custom-wraps.”
The digital wrap tool has been around since Tesla’s 2024 Holiday Update, when it launched for Cybertruck owners first, as Teslarati reported at the time. Getting a design onto the car meant formatting a USB drive, creating a folder named exactly “Wraps,” dropping in PNG files sized between 512×512 and 1024×1024 pixels and under 1 MB each, then plugging the drive in and applying the wrap through Toybox. Tesla expanded the tool to other models and renamed it from “Colorizer” to “Paint Shop” with the 2025 Holiday Update, while also adding license plate and window tint customization alongside the wraps.
Custom wraps via mobile app https://t.co/5OydZ26g9p pic.twitter.com/uexU0ZePxu
— Tesla (@Tesla) July 22, 2026
The latest Summer Update removes the USB step from that process. Owners will be able to pull a design from wherever they saved it, whether that’s a download from social media or something built from Tesla’s own GitHub templates, and push it to the car directly through the app.
Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more
It’s a small fix relative to the rest of this latest release, which also included expanded Grok voice commands, automatic navigation that learns regular routes, and self-driving stats inside the mobile app, all detailed in our rundown of the full Summer Update. The USB requirement was one of the more common complaints about Paint Shop since it launched. Tesla did not say when the wrap upload change would reach individual vehicles, only that the broader update is rolling out now in waves.
Elon Musk
Tesla Diner is throwing a birthday party with a Franz-signed special treat
Tesla Diner turns one on July 21 with Optimus, roller skates, and a Franz-signed hat.
Tesla is throwing its Hollywood Diner a first birthday party on July 21 and the celebration comes with a guest list of unique items, including a limited run of Tesla Diner birthday hats personally signed by Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen for the first 50 customers who place an in-car order at midnight.
One year after lines wrapped around the block on Santa Monica Boulevard for a diner that most of the restaurant industry did not take seriously, Tesla is making the case that the concept was worth the years it took to build. The concept had been in Musk’s head since at least 2018, when he floated the idea of “an old school drive-in, roller skates and rock restaurant” on X, describing it years later as “‘Grease’ meets ‘The Jetsons’ with Supercharging.”
Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is coming to the Tesla Diner with new ambitions
What made the diner genuinely different from any restaurant that came before it was not the menu or the nostalgia. It was the ordering model. Tesla owners could place food orders directly from their vehicle’s touchscreen before arriving, a small feature that hints at something much larger on the horizon. As the Cybercab and unsupervised FSD expand across major cities, the diner model becomes a template for an entirely new kind of commerce. A robotaxi pulling in to charge does not need a human to walk up to a counter. The vehicle places the order, the food is ready on arrival, and the passenger never interrupts the experience of being driven somewhere else. It is the first glimpse of what drive-through commerce looks like when the car is doing the driving.
As Teslarati has reported, Musk signaled immediately after opening that the Hollywood location was only the beginning, posting that Tesla would expand the concept to major cities worldwide and along Supercharger corridors on long-distance routes if the first location proved successful. One year in, the birthday celebration on July 21 makes a strong case that it has. Tesla announced a full day of events including a Cybercab on display, a birthday menu, Optimus in attendance, face painting, a photo booth, roller skating servers, a light show, a Skypad DJ, and complimentary collectibles.
If Musk’s ambition holds, the Hollywood diner is year one of something much bigger. The birthday party is the proof of concept. The robotaxi fleet is the business model waiting behind it.
Tesla Diner is turning 1 on July 21st, so we’re throwing a party
Come swing by for a day full of fun:
– Cybercab on display
– Birthday menu
– @Tesla_Optimus
– Face painting for kids & adults
– Photo booth
– Servers on roller skates delivering your order
– Light show
– Skypad DJ… pic.twitter.com/TD8pOjihYs— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) July 18, 2026