Lifestyle
Craft Brewery opens in SpaceX’s backyard, creates special beer for employees
When their shifts are over, SpaceX employees in Hawthorne, CA only have to walk a short way to their favorite new hangout: Los Angeles Ale Works. The soft opening of the area’s first craft brewery a couple of weeks ago has allowed SpaceX employees to personally sample a variety of what will be the house signatures brews — two-dozen taps pouring a wide variety of styles of small batch beer. Starting Thursday, when the grand opening will take place, crowds will descend upon the former industrial building and Hawthorne’s first brewery and tasting room. For now, a bunch of the SpaceX employees and locals have been savoring Los Angeles Ale Works’ inviting space.
Los Angeles Ale Works already serves two varieties named after SpaceX: a low-alcohol session India Pale Ale named Space XPA and a Space XPA Full Thrust double IPA.
“From California citrus to Chinese tea, I want to showcase the whole range of flavor that L.A. is known for,” says Ale Works co-founder Kristofor Barnes, “and the brewery is a great way to work with all the amazing, interesting, and creative people I’ve met through the beer industry.” The brewery, with a modest 10-barrel system, will reportedly offer many taproom-only variants and one-off brews to supplement core offerings, which will be distributed to bars and restaurants around Los Angeles.
Showcasing that variety of ales and lagers, the brewery features a long, L-shaped bar overlooking the brew house. A SpaceX banner drapes from the brewery’s 24-foot-high beams. There’s also a separate custom-built lounge-and-conference room combination with pub games and ample space to chat or tweet. Other than the interesting beer selection, what will probably be Los Angeles Ale Works’ most popular feature is a patio adjacent to the parking lot for some decadent beer-sipping with rays and shades. There is also enough room for some local food trucks to stop by and add their aromas to the fun.
Los Angeles Ale Works is the dream-come-true of head brewer Barnes. In 2013, Los Angeles Ale Works launched its first beers into the marketplace after a successful Kickstarter fundraiser. Working with Ohana Brewing Co, they tenant-brewed proof of concept beers to gather valuable feedback from customers. In 2015, Barnes added business expertise to the office side with Andrew Fowler and Jeff Szafarski, and together the ownership group raised capital.
Now Barnes’ original idea is grounded in brick and mortar. “There’s a huge void of breweries in Hawthorne, and you have this huge high-tech business sector — including SpaceX, Tesla, some of the ancillary companies — so we knew there was a built-in consumer base with those industries,” said Fowler. The affluent and educated SpaceX group is a welcome demographic for Los Angeles Ale Works, which considers itself an experimental brewery.
Set in a handsome 9,600-square-foot brick structure built in 1952 by Northrop Grumman, the brewery is part of an area-wide conversion from dilapidated industrial buildings to upscale destination. Another brewery is expected to open in the same light-industrial zone off El Segundo Boulevard. SpaceX entry into the area served as a magnet for other business, with another architectural evolution currently underway in which a complex of studios under construction nearby will eventually have the capacity to showcase the work of 100 different artists. The area’s rebirth is infusing much more community and aesthetics to this section of town, and “a lot of people are moving into the neighborhood,” Fowler acknowledged.
The original notion of listening to their customer base continues at the new Hawthorne location. Szafarski stated that they intend to solicit beer style ideas from customers and then produce them. “Customer feedback is very important to us. We have a lot of beers on tap that give people a reason to come back tomorrow and not six months from now.”
The name Los Angeles Ale Works is a nod to the early years of the business, when Barnes borrowed equipment from a downtown Los Angeles brewery.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybercab just rolled through Miami inside a glass box
Tesla paraded a Cybercab in a glass display at Miami’s F1 Grand Prix event this week.
Tesla set up an “Autonomy Pop-Up” at Lummus Park in Miami Beach from April 29 through May 3, 2026, embedded within the official F1 Miami Grand Prix Fan Fest. The centerpiece was a Cybertruck towing the Cybercab inside a glass display case marked “Future is Autonomous,” rolling through the beachfront crowd.
Miami is on Tesla’s confirmed list of cities for robotaxi expansion in the first half of 2026, making the promotion a strategic promotion that lays groundwork in a target market.
This was not Tesla’s first time using Miami as a showcase city. In December 2025, Tesla hosted “The Future of Autonomy Visualized” at its Miami Design District showroom, coinciding with Art Basel Miami Beach. That event featured the Cybercab prototype and Optimus robots interacting with attendees. The F1 pop-up this week marks Tesla’s return to Miami and follows a pattern Tesla has been running since early 2026. Just two weeks before Miami, Tesla stationed Optimus at the Tesla Boston Boylston Street showroom on April 19 and 20, directly on the final stretch of the Boston Marathon, letting tens of thousands of runners and spectators meet the robot for free, generating massive earned media at zero advertising cost.
Tesla is sending its humanoid Optimus robot to the Boston Marathon
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its robotaxi service to seven cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, building on the unsupervised service already running in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year. On the production side, Musk told shareholders that the Cybercab manufacturing process could eventually produce up to 5 million vehicles per year, targeting a cycle time of one unit every ten seconds. Scaling robotaxis to 10 million operational units over the next ten years is a key condition of his compensation package, alongside selling 20 million passenger vehicles.
As for the Cybercab’s price, Musk has said buyers will be able to purchase one for under $30,000, with an average operating cost around $0.20 per mile. Whether those numbers hold through full production remains to be seen.
Cybercab at F1 Fan Fest in Miami
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Lifestyle
California hits Tesla Cybercab and Robotaxi driverless cars with new law
California just gave police power to ticket driverless cars, including Tesla’s Cybercab fleet.
California DMV formally adopted new rules on April 29, 2026 that allow law enforcement to issue “notices of noncompliance”, or in other words ticket autonomous vehicle companies when their cars commit moving violations. The rules take effect July 1, 2026 and officially closes a regulatory gap that previously let driverless cars operate on public roads with nearly no traffic enforcement consequences.
Until now, state traffic laws only applied to human “drivers,” which meant that when no person was behind the wheel, police had no mechanism to issue a ticket. Officers were limited to citing driverless vehicles for parking violations only. A well-known example came in September 2025, when a San Bruno officer watched a Waymo robotaxi execute an illegal U-turn and could do nothing but notify the company.
Under the new framework, when an officer observes a violation, the autonomous vehicle company is effectively treated as the driver. Companies must report each incident to the DMV within 72 hours, or 24 hours if a collision is involved. Repeated violations can result in fleet size restrictions, operational suspensions, or full permit revocation. Local officials also gained new authority to geofence driverless vehicles out of active emergency zones within two minutes and require a live emergency response line answered within 30 seconds.
Tesla Cybercab ramps Robotaxi public street testing as vehicle enters mass production queue
California’s new enforcement rules arrive at a pivotal moment for Tesla. The company is ramping Cybercab production at Giga Texas toward hundreds of units per week, targeting at least 2 million units annually at full capacity, while simultaneously pushing to expand its Robotaxi service to dozens of U.S. cities by end of 2026. Unsupervised FSD for consumer vehicles is currently targeted for Q4 2026, and when it arrives, Tesla’s fleet may not have a human to absorb legal accountability, under the July 1 rules.
Tesla has confirmed plans to expand its Robotaxi service to seven new cities in the first half of 2026, including Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Las Vegas, with the service already running without safety drivers in Austin. Musk has said he expects robotaxis to cover between a quarter and half of the United States by end of year.
Elon Musk
The FCC just said ‘No’ to SpaceX for now
SpaceX is fighting the FCC for spectrum that could put satellites inside every smartphone.
SpaceX was dealt a new setback on April 23, 2006 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after the U.S. government agency dismissed the company’s petition to access a Mobile Satellite Service spectrum that would allow direct-to-device (D2D) capabilities.
The FCC regulates communications by radio, television, wire, and cable, which also includes regulating D2D technology that lets your existing smartphone connect directly to a satellite orbiting Earth, the same way it would connect to a cell tower.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been building toward this through its Starlink Mobile service, formerly called Direct-to-Cell, in partnership with T-Mobile. The service officially launched on July 23, 2025, starting with messaging and expanding to broadband data in October of that year.
T-Mobile Starlink Pricing Announced – Early Adopters Get Exclusive Discount
It’s worth noting that SpaceX is not alone in this race. AT&T and Verizon have their own satellite texting deals with AST SpaceMobile, while Verizon separately offers free satellite texting through Skylo on newer phones.
The regulatory foundation for all of this dates to March 14, 2024, when the FCC adopted the world’s first framework for what it called Supplemental Coverage from Space, allowing satellite operators to lease spectrum from terrestrial carriers and fill gaps in their coverage. On November 26, 2024, the FCC granted SpaceX the first-ever authorization under that framework, approving its partnership with T-Mobile to provide service in specific frequency bands. SpaceX then went further, completing a roughly $17 billion acquisition of wireless spectrum from EchoStar, which gave it the ability to negotiate with global carriers more independently.
Starlink’s EchoStar spectrum deal could bring 5G coverage anywhere
This recent ruling by the FCC blocked SpaceX from going further, protecting incumbent spectrum holders like Globalstar and Iridium. But the market momentum is already in motion. As Teslarati reported, SpaceX is targeting peak speeds of 150 Mbps per user for its next generation Direct-to-Cell service, compared to roughly 4 Mbps today, which would bring satellite connectivity close to standard carrier performance.
With a reported IPO targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation on the horizon, each spectrum fight, carrier deal, and regulatory win or loss now carries weight beyond just connectivity. SpaceX is quietly becoming the infrastructure layer underneath the phones of millions of people, and the FCC’s next move will help determine how much further that reach extends.
FCC Satellite Rule Makings can be found here.
Tesla Robotaxi service in Austin achieves monumental new accomplishment
Tesla Cybercab just rolled through Miami inside a glass box
