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The Boring Co. is holding a Not-a-Flamethrower pickup party on June 9
In an update on Saturday, Elon Musk announced that The Boring Company would be holding a Not-a-Flamethrower pickup party in Los Angeles on June 9.
During The Boring Company’s information session earlier this month, Elon Musk, together with SpaceX engineer Steve Davis, stated that the delivery and shipment of the Not-a-Flamethrowers were delayed since shipping items with propane proved to be complicated. Thus, according to Musk, the Boring Co. has come up with a solution to its shipping problems — the company will custom-deliver the Not-a-Flamethrowers to the homes of reservation holders.
About to ship. @BoringCompany holding flamethrower pickup parties in a week or so, then deliveries begin. Check https://t.co/WTl3TOTOkt for details.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 26, 2018
As it turns out, however, the Boring Company has an extra surprise before it starts delivering the fiery device. As could be seen in a recently shared screenshot of a correspondence from the tunneling startup (credit to u/Herbrax212 of the r/BoringCompany subreddit), a pick-up party for the first 1,000 Not-a-Flamethrowers would be held in Los Angeles on June 9. Following is an excerpt from the email that The Boring Company recently sent out to reservation holders.
Anyways… we are hosting a Not-a-Flamethrower pickup party in Los Angeles on June 9, 2018, from noon to 5 pm. Up to 1,000 customers can pick up their Not-a-Flamethrower, toast some marshmallows, take some fun pics, prep to take on a zombie horde, and (of course) receive a refund for their shipping charges. Only eligible customers who have signed the terms and conditions and have registered at www.boringcompany.com/pickup may attend. Don’t worry if you can’t make it; all Not-a-Flamethrowers will ship out this summer!
Where should we throw our next pick up party?
The Boring Company
The Boring Company Not-a-Flamethrower started off as a joke from Elon Musk and yet another reference to Hollywood sci-fi flick Spaceballs. In a tweet last December, Musk stated that the tunneling startup would release a flamethrower after selling its 50,000th Boring Company hat. Sure enough, after the inventory of the hats were cleared out, signs of the Boring Company Flamethrower started emerging.
By January, musician D.A. Wallach shared a video of the fiery device on his Instagram page. Not long after that, Elon Musk officially launched the Flamethrower in the Boring Company’s website, selling the contraption for $500 each. All 20,000 Boring Company Flamethrowers were sold out within four days, raising $10 million for the tunneling startup.
The device, however, did not come without its detractors. California assemblyman Miguel Santiago (D-Los Angeles), for one, expressed his opposition to the device, citing its safety concerns. Customs agencies also stated that they would not ship anything that is branded as a flamethrower. In response to this, Musk opted to rebrand the fiery device, calling it a Not-a-Flamethrower.
While the Boring Company Not-a-Flamethrower looks like a powerful firestarter, the device is actually more akin to a propane torch fitted on what appears to be a modified airsoft rifle. Considering that the device can only shoot flames up to a few feet, the Not-a-Flamethrower is actually more similar to a Weed Dragon, which could be purchased in any hardware store, than an actual flamethrower such as the XM42-M, which can shoot flames up to 30 feet.
Elon Musk
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service has continued its rapid global expansion, surpassing 9 million active customers just weeks after crossing the 8 million mark.
The milestone highlights the accelerating growth of Starlink, which has now been adding over 20,000 new users per day.
9 million customers
In a post on X, SpaceX stated that Starlink now serves over 9 million active users across 155 countries, territories, and markets. The company reached 8 million customers in early November, meaning it added roughly 1 million subscribers in under seven weeks, or about 21,275 new users on average per day.
“Starlink is connecting more than 9M active customers with high-speed internet across 155 countries, territories, and many other markets,” Starlink wrote in a post on its official X account. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell also celebrated the milestone on X. “A huge thank you to all of our customers and congrats to the Starlink team for such an incredible product,” she wrote.
That growth rate reflects both rising demand for broadband in underserved regions and Starlink’s expanding satellite constellation, which now includes more than 9,000 low-Earth-orbit satellites designed to deliver high-speed, low-latency internet worldwide.
Starlink’s momentum
Starlink’s momentum has been building up. SpaceX reported 4.6 million Starlink customers in December 2024, followed by 7 million by August 2025, and 8 million customers in November. Independent data also suggests Starlink usage is rising sharply, with Cloudflare reporting that global web traffic from Starlink users more than doubled in 2025, as noted in an Insider report.
Starlink’s momentum is increasingly tied to SpaceX’s broader financial outlook. Elon Musk has said the satellite network is “by far” the company’s largest revenue driver, and reports suggest SpaceX may be positioning itself for an initial public offering as soon as next year, with valuations estimated as high as $1.5 trillion. Musk has also suggested in the past that Starlink could have its own IPO in the future.
News
NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine.
NVIDIA Director of Robotics Jim Fan has praised Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14 as the first AI to pass what he described as a “Physical Turing Test.”
After testing FSD v14, Fan stated that his experience with FSD felt magical at first, but it soon started to feel like a routine. And just like smartphones today, removing it now would “actively hurt.”
Jim Fan’s hands-on FSD v14 impressions
Fan, a leading researcher in embodied AI who is currently solving Physical AI at NVIDIA and spearheading the company’s Project GR00T initiative, noted that he actually was late to the Tesla game. He was, however, one of the first to try out FSD v14.
“I was very late to own a Tesla but among the earliest to try out FSD v14. It’s perhaps the first time I experience an AI that passes the Physical Turing Test: after a long day at work, you press a button, lay back, and couldn’t tell if a neural net or a human drove you home,” Fan wrote in a post on X.
Fan added: “Despite knowing exactly how robot learning works, I still find it magical watching the steering wheel turn by itself. First it feels surreal, next it becomes routine. Then, like the smartphone, taking it away actively hurts. This is how humanity gets rewired and glued to god-like technologies.”
The Physical Turing Test
The original Turing Test was conceived by Alan Turing in 1950, and it was aimed at determining if a machine could exhibit behavior that is equivalent to or indistinguishable from a human. By focusing on text-based conversations, the original Turing Test set a high bar for natural language processing and machine learning.
This test has been passed by today’s large language models. However, the capability to converse in a humanlike manner is a completely different challenge from performing real-world problem-solving or physical interactions. Thus, Fan introduced the Physical Turing Test, which challenges AI systems to demonstrate intelligence through physical actions.
Based on Fan’s comments, Tesla has demonstrated these intelligent physical actions with FSD v14. Elon Musk agreed with the NVIDIA executive, stating in a post on X that with FSD v14, “you can sense the sentience maturing.” Musk also praised Tesla AI, calling it the best “real-world AI” today.
News
Tesla AI team burns the Christmas midnight oil by releasing FSD v14.2.2.1
The update was released just a day after FSD v14.2.2 started rolling out to customers.
Tesla is burning the midnight oil this Christmas, with the Tesla AI team quietly rolling out Full Self-Driving (Supervised) v14.2.2.1 just a day after FSD v14.2.2 started rolling out to customers.
Tesla owner shares insights on FSD v14.2.2.1
Longtime Tesla owner and FSD tester @BLKMDL3 shared some insights following several drives with FSD v14.2.2.1 in rainy Los Angeles conditions with standing water and faded lane lines. He reported zero steering hesitation or stutter, confident lane changes, and maneuvers executed with precision that evoked the performance of Tesla’s driverless Robotaxis in Austin.
Parking performance impressed, with most spots nailed perfectly, including tight, sharp turns, in single attempts without shaky steering. One minor offset happened only due to another vehicle that was parked over the line, which FSD accommodated by a few extra inches. In rain that typically erases road markings, FSD visualized lanes and turn lines better than humans, positioning itself flawlessly when entering new streets as well.
“Took it up a dark, wet, and twisty canyon road up and down the hill tonight and it went very well as to be expected. Stayed centered in the lane, kept speed well and gives a confidence inspiring steering feel where it handles these curvy roads better than the majority of human drivers,” the Tesla owner wrote in a post on X.
Tesla’s FSD v14.2.2 update
Just a day before FSD v14.2.2.1’s release, Tesla rolled out FSD v14.2.2, which was focused on smoother real-world performance, better obstacle awareness, and precise end-of-trip routing. According to the update’s release notes, FSD v14.2.2 upgrades the vision encoder neural network with higher resolution features, enhancing detection of emergency vehicles, road obstacles, and human gestures.
New Arrival Options also allowed users to select preferred drop-off styles, such as Parking Lot, Street, Driveway, Parking Garage, or Curbside, with the navigation pin automatically adjusting to the ideal spot. Other refinements include pulling over for emergency vehicles, real-time vision-based detours for blocked roads, improved gate and debris handling, and Speed Profiles for customized driving styles.
Starlink passes 9 million active customers just weeks after hitting 8 million
NVIDIA Director of Robotics: Tesla FSD v14 is the first AI to pass the “Physical Turing Test”
