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The Boring Company to unveil tunnel and car elevator on December 18th

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According to tweets by both The Boring Company and its famous founder, Elon Musk, the answer to “soul-crushing traffic” will have to wait a few days longer. The anticipated opening event marking the completion of their 2-mile test tunnel project originally scheduled for December 10th has now been shafted…er, shifted to December 18th. No reason was given for the postponement; however, as of this last Tuesday, the incomplete construction status of a corresponding watchtower may have been pointing towards the general state of a few items needing to be finalized before doors officially open.

In a further tease about the company’s nearing event, the Tesla CEO also dropped a few hints for tunnel-specific transports, one being a modified autonomous car for above-ground roads and the other an elevator to carry cars between the ground and the tunnel. As for the promised snail habitat? Perhaps it’s for transport speed appreciation, perhaps it was just a suggestion by a machine operator with a boring lunch break. Either way, given Musk’s penchant for unusual and cultural humor (to include Monty-Python inspired job interviews), it’s a tough call whether any shelled greeters will meet event attendees.

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Began in 2017, the company’s initial construction project was a shaft tunnel entrance on Crenshaw Boulevard across from the Hawthorne, California headquarters of SpaceX, Musk’s private rocket company. The 20-foot-plus opening was built to host Boring’s garage-elevator concept for lifting and lowering vehicles in and out of the coming tunnels, and a second shaft was dug out two miles away at the 120th Street/Prairie Avenue crossroad of Hawthorne, marking the tunnel’s end. Midway between the two points sits O’Leary Station, another shaft surmised to demonstrate vehicles entering and exiting tunnels outside primary end caps via a concept “garage-elevator”. The Station was named after Patrick O’Leary, Boring Company’s Structures Engineering Designer.

An incomplete watchtower awaits its French-accented, insult-throwing knight. | Credit: Pauline Acalin/Teslarati

While free rides in the tunnel will be open to the public following the company’s grand opening event, the O’Leary elevator will not share the same status. Instead, it will remain a testing site for shuttling vehicles back and forth between SpaceX and the station, along with moving vehicles in and out of a private residence acquired for the purpose. This testing will help Boring gather data to expand its reach to other areas that could benefit from the technology.

The grander vision behind Boring’s test tunnel is to eventually overhaul traffic infrastructure systems in city-wide projects. Musk’s Twitter-joke-turned-company has done some growing down, and has even negotiated high-speed transit proposals with government officials in Chicago. Stay tuned for the next not-a-boring-chapter soon to be revealed!

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Accidental computer geek, fascinated by most history and the multiplanetary future on its way. Quite keen on the democratization of space. | It's pronounced day-sha, but I answer to almost any variation thereof.

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Elon Musk

Brazil Supreme Court orders Elon Musk and X investigation closed

The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.

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Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has ordered the closure of an investigation involving Elon Musk and social media platform X. The inquiry had been pending for about two years and examined whether the platform was used to coordinate attacks against members of the judiciary.

The decision was issued by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes following a recommendation from Brazil’s Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet.

According to a report from Agencia Brasil, the investigation conducted by the Federal Police did not find evidence that X deliberately attempted to attack the judiciary or circumvent court orders.

Prosecutor-General Paulo Gonet concluded that the irregularities identified during the probe did not indicate fraudulent intent.

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Justice Moraes accepted the prosecutor’s recommendation and ruled that the investigation should be closed. Under the ruling, the case will remain closed unless new evidence emerges.

The inquiry stemmed from concerns that content on X may have enabled online attacks against Supreme Court justices or violated rulings requiring the suspension of certain accounts under investigation.

Justice Moraes had previously taken several enforcement actions related to the platform during the broader dispute involving social media regulation in Brazil.

These included ordering a nationwide block of the platform, freezing Starlink accounts, and imposing fines on X totaling about $5.2 million. Authorities also froze financial assets linked to X and SpaceX through Starlink to collect unpaid penalties and seized roughly $3.3 million from the companies’ accounts.

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Moraes also imposed daily fines of up to R$5 million, about $920,000, for alleged evasion of the X ban and established penalties of R$50,000 per day for VPN users who attempted to bypass the restriction.

Brazil remains an important market for X, with roughly 17 million users, making it one of the platform’s larger user bases globally.

The country is also a major market for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet service, which has surpassed one million subscribers in Brazil.

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FCC chair criticizes Amazon over opposition to SpaceX satellite plan

Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.

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Credit: @SecWar/X

U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr criticized Amazon after the company opposed SpaceX’s proposal to launch a large satellite constellation that could function as an orbital data center network.

Carr made the remarks in a post on social media platform X.

Amazon recently urged the FCC to reject SpaceX’s application to deploy a constellation of up to 1 million low Earth orbit satellites that could serve as artificial intelligence data centers in space.

The company described the proposal as a “lofty ambition rather than a real plan,” arguing that SpaceX had not provided sufficient details about how the system would operate.

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Carr responded by pointing to Amazon’s own satellite deployment progress.

“Amazon should focus on the fact that it will fall roughly 1,000 satellites short of meeting its upcoming deployment milestone, rather than spending their time and resources filing petitions against companies that are putting thousands of satellites in orbit,” Carr wrote on X.

Amazon has declined to comment on the statement.

Amazon has been working to deploy its Project Kuiper satellite network, which is intended to compete with SpaceX’s Starlink service. The company has invested more than $10 billion in the program and has launched more than 200 satellites since April of last year.

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Amazon has also asked the FCC for a 24-month extension, until July 2028, to meet a requirement to deploy roughly 1,600 satellites by July 2026, as noted in a CNBC report.

SpaceX’s Starlink network currently has nearly 10,000 satellites in orbit and serves roughly 10 million customers. The FCC has also authorized SpaceX to deploy 7,500 additional satellites as the company continues expanding its global satellite internet network.

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Energy

Tesla Energy gains UK license to sell electricity to homes and businesses

The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.

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Credit: Tesla Energy/X

Tesla Energy has received a license to supply electricity in the United Kingdom, opening the door for the company to serve homes and businesses in the country.

The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.

According to Ofgem, the license took effect at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday and applies to Great Britain.

The approval allows Tesla’s energy business to sell electricity directly to customers in the region, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.

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Tesla has already expanded similar services in the United States. In Texas, the company offers electricity plans that allow Tesla owners to charge their vehicles at a lower cost while also feeding excess electricity back into the grid.

Tesla already has a sizable presence in the UK market. According to price comparison website U-switch, there are more than 250,000 Tesla electric vehicles in the country and thousands of Tesla home energy storage systems.

Ofgem also noted that Tesla Motors Ltd., a separate entity incorporated in England and Wales, received an electricity generation license in June 2020.

The new UK license arrives as Tesla continues expanding its global energy business.

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Last year, Tesla Energy retained the top position in the global battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market for the second consecutive year. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest rankings, Tesla held about 15% of global market share in 2024.

The company also maintained a dominant position in North America, where it captured roughly 39% market share in the region.

At the same time, competition in the energy storage sector is increasing. Chinese companies such as Sungrow have been expanding their presence globally, particularly in Europe.

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