News
Elon Musk’s Boring Company extracts TBM segments as tunnel debut nears
On November 27, a large crew of Boring Company employees and contractors converged upon the company’s Praire Avenue work site, home of a number of recent milestones for the tunneling startup’s 2-mile long test tunnel situated beneath Hawthorne, California. Just a handful of blocks away from SpaceX’s main rocket factory, The Boring Co. completed the removal of its first tunnel boring machine (TBM), allowing the company to begin cleaning up the site, preparing it for the installation of a brand new elevator shaft capable of transporting vehicles or custom sleds into or out of the tunnel.
The extraction of Godot, the tunneling startup’s first TBM, was shared by the company on its official Twitter account. Godot is a conventional TBM, and during the company’s information session earlier this year, Elon Musk noted that the machine would be succeeded by Line-Storm, which is “essentially a hybrid between a conventional boring machine and Proof-Rock, a fully Boring Company-designed machine.” Being electric-powered, Proof-rock is expected have 3x more power and operate 10-15x times faster than Godot.
Godot (our 1st TBM) is out of the ground! Getting excited for Hawthorne test tunnel opening in a few weeks pic.twitter.com/5DF2sDtmIo
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) November 28, 2018
On the same day as the TBM removal began, news broke that The Boring Company had settled with a number of Los Angeles-based complainants and chosen to cancel a proposed extension of the test tunnel expected to run under Sepulveda Boulevard. Counter to a narrative coming out of several media outlets that TBC had effectively canceled an important tunnel against the company’s will, Elon Musk clarified that the actual explanation for the change in plans was largely positive, with the company believing that it no longer needs additional practice thanks to experience gained through the construction of its first test tunnel.
Instead of pursuing the Sepulveda tunnel extension, The Boring Company instead believes that it can and should move directly to a more ambitious network of tunnels to crisscross subterranean Los Angeles, known as the Dugout Loop thanks to the inclusion of Dodger Stadium as a primary destination.
This is completely backwards. Based on what we’ve learned from the Hawthorne test tunnel, we’re moving forward with a much larger tunnel network under LA. Won’t need a second test tunnel under Sepulveda.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 29, 2018
Amidst the Boring Company’s preparations for the December 10 opening party of its Hawthorne test tunnel, the site of the Prairie Ave pit, which is expected to be the location of the Boring Company’s prototype garage-elevator concept, has shown lots of activity. Just recently, Teslarati photographer Pauline Acalin was able to capture images of multiple semi-trucks loading and transporting extricated TBM segments.
Based on the photographs we acquired, dozens of employees and/or contractors were present during the TBM extraction. The removal and transportation of the TBM segments from the Prairie Ave. pit appear to have been completed in ~24 hours from start to finish as well, as other members of the Teslarati team who visited the area not long after the photos were taken noted that the boring machine segments have already been transported elsewhere when they arrived.
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- The Boring Company began removing Godot, its first tunnel boring machine, on Nov. 27 and completed the removal the following day. (Pauline Acalin)
The Boring Company began removing Godot, its first tunnel boring machine, on Nov. 27 and completed the removal the following day. (Pauline Acalin)
The extraction of Godot from the Prairie Ave. site bodes well for The Boring Company’s planned operations in the future. Conventional tunneling practices, after all, usually involve leaving expensive TBM components such as the cutting head underground after work is complete due to high costs associated with their retrieval. In classic Elon Musk fashion, the Boring Company has opted for reusability instead, seemingly using its prototype garage-elevator concept as an exit point for its TBM segments.
The experience gained by The Boring Company in its Hawthorne test tunnel would help the tunneling startup tackle its most ambitious project to date — Chicago’s upcoming downtown to O’Hare high-speed transport line, which is expected to break ground as soon as the project’s permits are completed. Updates about the Chicago project have been scarce so far, though photographs taken by Teslarati photographers suggest that a gantry for the Chicago tunnel line, as well as what appears to be a next-generation TBM, is under construction.
Here’s a little video we made to commemorate our work covering The Boring Company.
Elon Musk
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
SpaceX priced its historic IPO at $135 per share today, raising a record $75 billion.
SpaceX officially priced its initial public offering at $135 per share, offering 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock and raising $75 billion in what is the largest IPO in stock market history. Shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday, June 12, under the ticker symbol SPCX. The previous record holder was Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering at $29 billion, followed by Alibaba’s $22 billion offering in 2014.
At $135 per share and roughly 555.6 million shares, the implied valuation sits near $1.75 trillion, which would make SpaceX roughly the seventh largest company in the United States, just above Tesla’s current market cap. Regular investors can request shares at the IPO price through Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and E*TRADE, though the deal is heavily oversubscribed and most retail allocations will be partial or unfilled. Once trading opens June 12, anyone with a brokerage account can buy SPCX on the open market.
SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation
The valuation is anchored primarily by Starlink. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers as of February 2026 and is adding 750,000 to 1.5 million new users per month, with the connectivity segment already posting a $1.19 billion profit last quarter. The offering also bundles in xAI following SpaceX’s all-stock merger earlier this year, adding Grok and the Colossus supercomputer to the investment thesis. As Teslarati reported, Starlink ended 2025 with $10 billion in revenue, a figure analysts project could reach $24 billion by end of 2026.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has been vocal in his support. “I think the time is right,” Ives said, adding that the offering expands the Elon Musk ecosystem rather than competing with Tesla. An average 12-month price target of $165 per share represents roughly 22% upside from the IPO price. Not everyone agrees – Motley Fool noted xAI is spending $1 billion per month playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with a single stated purpose. “Elon founded SpaceX with a goal to change humanity, to make us a multi-planet species,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in the company’s retail roadshow video this week. Musk himself has been more direct: “We are building the systems and technologies necessary to provide global connectivity on Earth and beyond, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.
Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.
The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.
De @Tesla community houdt hier al geruime tijd de vinger aan de pols over de toelating voor de FSD-technologie op onze Vlaamse en Belgische wegen.
Uit waardering voor jullie niet-aflatende interesse (en aanmoediging 😉), krijgen jullie hierbij de primeur: ik heb net de toelating… pic.twitter.com/Yrps4OHTj8— Annick De Ridder (@AnnickDeRidder) June 10, 2026
The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.
Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Getting Full Self-Driving in Spain and England will be such huge milestones for Tesla. I am so excited to see how FSD performs in Madrid, Barcelona, and London, specifically.
The ultimate test will always be Mumbai or New Delhi. Excited for India’s eventual approval! https://t.co/paw9Ch1qmL pic.twitter.com/9RdDERVSSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
