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Each step of Elon Musk’s first Tesla Master Plan visualized in concept video

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Back in 2006, Elon Musk discreetly published his first Master Plan for Tesla, a company was then pushing hard to create its first vehicle, the original Tesla Roadster. The plan was ambitious, and it forecasted massive growth for the small, upstart carmaker. It was, at that time, at least, highly optimistic, and perhaps a little more than improbable. 

Elon Musk’s first Master Plan is aimed at accomplishing a notable part of Tesla’s overall mission: to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy. The plan involved four stages, starting with the creation of a low-volume, high-priced vehicle (the original Tesla Roadster), a medium volume car at a lower price (the Model S and Model X), and culminating in the creation of a high-volume car (the Model 3), and solar power (Tesla Energy). 

If all this sounds a bit familiar, it is because Tesla has accomplished each step of this plan today. The original Tesla Roadster was successful, and it opened the doors to the Model S and X. The Model 3 is saturating multiple territories across the globe, and Tesla Energy is ramping, albeit at a more understated pace compared to the company’s electric car business. 

This journey was recently highlighted in a concept video from Tesla enthusiast Viv (@flcnhvy) on Twitter. Commemorating the upcoming 13th anniversary of Elon Musk’s first Master Plan, the video shows every step of the company’s journey from the original Tesla Roadster all the way to the Model 3 ramp. The video is brief, but it does depict the remarkable journey of an ambitious Silicon Valley startup that decided to help push the world towards sustainability. 

Elon Musk published his second Master Plan three years ago, and so far, the company continues to make some progress towards turning each of its steps a reality. Master Plan, Part Deux is not as product-focused as the first Plan, being comprised of the introduction of Solar Roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage, an expansion of the company’s vehicle lineup across all major segments, the development of an autonomous driving solution that’s 10x safer than a human driver, and the launch of the Tesla Network’s Robotaxi service. 

So far, Tesla has started a deliberate rollout of its Solar Roof tiles, though mass installations for the product are yet to get underway. The expansion of the company’s vehicle lineup has also begun, as evidenced by the Model Y, the Pickup Truck, the Tesla Semi, and the next-generation Roadster. Full Self-Driving also draws closer with each Autopilot update, and the launch of the Tesla Network seems inevitable with the rollout of Hardware 3. Master Plan, Part Deux might not be complete yet, but all its pieces are already in place. 

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So what’s next for Tesla after Elon Musk’s second Master Plan is accomplished? A hint of this might have been dropped during the company’s second-quarter earnings call. While addressing a question from Colin William Rusch, an analyst from Oppenheimer & Co. Inc., the CEO mentioned a “Master Plan Part 3.” This, according to Musk, could start, at least in some way, when Tesla holds its Battery Day. 

“To some degree, the Battery Day will be kind of like master plan part 3, which is like, okay, how we get from kind of in the tens of gigawatt-hours per year to multiple terawatt-hours per year. That’s a pretty giant-scale increase. And so yes, it’s an increase of sort of roughly 100. Like if we’re at 28 gigawatt-hours right now — well, actually, there is more than that when you count the factories in Japan. So call it like a little over 30 to 35 or something like that. And how do we get to like two terawatt-hours a year?” Musk remarked. 

Watch a tribute to Elon Musk’s first Master Plan and how it was accomplished in the video below. 

https://twitter.com/flcnhvy/status/1155293351303876608?s=20

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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Tesla Cybertruck targets job site crews with new Tailgate Utility Track and Bed Gear Box accessory

Tesla launched a $350 tailgate track and a $985 lockable Bed Gear Box for Cybertruck.

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Tesla’s Cybertruck team added two more items to the Tesla Shop, targeting job site crews and owners who use the truck bed for actual work rather than just showing it off. The official Cybertruck X account posted the Tailgate Utility Track and the Bed Gear Box within minutes of each other, part of a five item batch that also included a reflective jacket, a spray paint hat and an updated reflective tee.

The Tailgate Utility Track runs $350 and turns the folded down tailgate into another mounting surface. It’s a single aluminum track with a T-slot for sliding accessories and two L-track attachment points, plus two load stops included in the box. The pitch is straightforward: strap down oversized cargo, like lumber or a cooler, that hangs off the back of the bed without it sliding out mid-drive. It bolts onto the existing tailgate and works on every Cybertruck trim.

The Bed Gear Box costs $985 and is a different kind of accessory. It’s a lockable aluminum storage box, 55.78 inches long, 19.8 inches wide and 7.79 inches tall, that mounts to the bed’s L-track rails and comes with two internal bins for smaller items. According to Tesla, at just over 57 pounds empty, it’s meant to stay in place rather than come in and out with each trip, giving owners a factory-fit alternative to loose totes for tools, recovery gear or emergency supplies. Tesla’s listing notes that Long Range and Dual Motor AWD Cybertrucks need the L-Tracks accessory installed separately before the Gear Box will mount, since L-tracks come standard only on certain configurations.

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Tesla Cybertruck bed gear box accessory

Both accessories lean on the idea Tesla has been building toward since Elon Musk first described the Cybertruck’s third-party attachment strategy at the 2023 shareholder meeting, when he said the truck would ship with mounting points so outside companies, and Tesla itself, could keep adding gear without redesigning the bed. That’s the same L-track backbone underneath the tailgate shield and jumpseats Tesla launched last year, and the off-road armor package that arrived through the same X account in 2025.

Owners looking to round out the rest of the L-track ecosystem, cargo dividers, MOLLE panels, bed racks and similar gear, can find a wider range of options through our Cybertruck accessories collection.

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Elon Musk says he knows how to save Earth for a billion years

Elon Musk says sentient AI satellites launched from the Moon could keep Earth livable forever.

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Elon Musk spent part of his weekend describing a plan to keep the planet livable for roughly a billion years, and it starts with satellites that can think for themselves.

In a post on X, Musk argued that swapping fossil fuels for solar and wind power will not be enough to protect humanity from what he called extremely severe extinction events, the kind that occur roughly every 100 million years. His fix is what he called sentient satellites, or solar-powered satellites, controlled by AI, that would sit in a fixed spot between Earth and the Sun after being launched off the Moon using a giant electromagnetic catapult instead of rockets.

The satellites’ onboard AI would make continuous, small adjustments rather than waiting on human instructions. The mass driver is Musk’s proposed way of getting the raw material there cheaply by using an electromagnetic launch track built on the Moon, where lower gravity and no atmosphere make it far easier to fling cargo into space than it is from Earth.

Musk shared a Grok generated estimate suggesting roughly 5 percent of Florida’s land, or about 1.68 million acres, could face regular flooding by 2070 under a high sea level rise scenario, and said humanity has about 50 years to act before coastal living looks very different than it does today.

This is not the first time Musk has floated the idea. He raised a similar concept in November, describing a solar powered AI satellite constellation that could make tiny adjustments to incoming sunlight to fine tune Earth’s temperature. Musk has also tied planetary risk to his broader vision at SpaceX, where his compensation package is explicitly linked to establishing a self-sustaining Mars colony, one he has described as an insurance policy against the kind of extinction event he referenced this weekend, and where he has said humans could set foot within five to seven years.

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Police sergeant recounts his Neuralink journey with Elon Musk’s brain chip

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A former Vancouver police sergeant with ALS accounts his journey to become a patient for Elon Musk’s Neuralink wireless brain-computer interface technology.

“I’m texting you from my brain right now.” That was the first message Lee Marten sent after waking up from Neuralink surgery, five hours and one migraine after dozens of threads were stitched into his motor cortex.

Marten, a former Vancouver police sergeant, is one of the first Canadian ALS patients to receive Neuralink’s N1 brain implant, and the 26th recipient overall. He tells his story in a first-person account published by Maclean’s.

Marten recounts how he was a healthy, athletic Vancouver police sergeant until April 2022 when symptoms of muscle twitching and balance loss, were followed by a bad fall that broke his leg. He would eventually be diagnosed with ALS in early 2025 at the age of 47. ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disease that progressively destroys the motor neurons controlling voluntary muscle movement, eventually taking away a patient’s ability to walk, speak, swallow and breathe. There’s no cure, and most patients live two to five years after diagnosis.

He describes the devastation of the diagnosis and how he began preparing for it while connecting with other young ALS patients through a WhatsApp group called Young Guns. Through that group he learned about a Neuralink clinical trial at Toronto Western Hospital and, after a roughly seven-month vetting process (physical assessments, psychiatric evaluation, a final interview with the Neuralink team), was accepted this past April as the trial’s 26th recipient and the first Canadian ALS patient to get the N1 implant. He recounts the May surgery in detail, including the robotic system that stitched 64 threads into his brain, and describes the app, Link, translating his neural signals into cursor control, which he was using within hours of waking up.

Marten walks through what daily use looks like, including weekly “brain training” exercises, a real-time neural-activity display, charging the implant via a beanie-mounted MagSafe charger, and using the implant for emailing, texting, social media, and gaming via a “Magic Box” that connects it to other devices. He also gives brief context on brain-computer interface history and quite candid about Musk, calling him “divisive” but saying he found him “easy to admire.

The piece closes on a heavier note, with Marten seeking to pursue medical assistance in dying as his symptoms progressed, noting that he’ll be able to communicate his final words to his family through Neuralink rather than facing a silent decline. He expresses hope the data from his case will help future ALS patients, even without a cure in his own lifetime.

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