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Elon Musk receives tasteless stab from PA Treasury with fabricated Boring Co. quote

(Credit: The Boring Company)

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Despite the positive change that Tesla, SpaceX, and The Boring Company offer to the world, it is certain that there will always be people who will criticize Elon Musk’s efforts. It comes with the territory that when you become such a successful and well-known public figure that you are sure to ruffle a few feathers.

However, when a State Government agency starts to spew venom in the direction of a man whose concerns are increasing the longevity of Planet Earth, one can only look at it as a facetious attempt to gain some kind of recognition. This is especially notable when it is on a social media outlet as popular as Twitter, and even more so if the said agency fabricates a quote to make its point.

The Pennsylvania Treasury’s official Twitter account recently took a stab at Musk’s idea for using underground transportation tunnels through the Boring Company. The tunneling startup has already completed a private tunnel in Los Angeles and is halfway finished with another in Las Vegas, which is expected to be capable of moving about 4,400 people an hour. The official PA Treasury then decided to throw their two cents into the mix.

“What if we took something like a subway, but made it unfathomably expensive and only for cars, and also make sure that it will never work?”—Elon Musk,,a genius,” @PATreasury tweeted on January 13.

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https://twitter.com/PATreasury/status/1216943795650158598

Just so we are all on the same page, the PA Treasury just made up that “quote.” Elon Musk never said that. In fact, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO has always maintained that the Boring Company’s tunnels will be affordable and functional, with some rides going as low as $1 per person. Its smaller tunnels are also far more affordable to build compared to regular subway tunnels, as proven by its proof-of-concept in Los Angeles.

While the Boring Company has not completed a public tunnel yet, it is important to note a few things. First, the Los Angeles tunnel, while private, is functional. The company’s website states that the tunnel is only accessible by people who are invited to use it, but the $10 million underground transportation tube works.

The purpose of the tunnel “is to demonstrate that a lift can be built in very small footprints and within existing buildings, whether they are houses, office buildings, or retail parking lots. Looking forward, one could have a lift in the basement of every office building, allowing extremely convenient commutes,” according to the tunneling startup’s website. The tunnel has done exactly that. It demonstrated that the idea is feasible and certainly possible.

Meanwhile in Sin City, the Las Vegas Convention Center tunnels will have the potential to be connected to various hotspots like the Strip and McCarron Airport. The $52.5 million project was secured by Boring Co. in May 2019 and will be ready for public use in early 2021. Amidst these rebuttals, many of which were expressed by supporters of Tesla, the PA Treasury opted to explain why it opted to take a stab at Musk.

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https://twitter.com/PATreasury/status/1217513554028482560?s=20

“If you don’t like the post or any of our posts, that’s fine. But we think generating a conversation about all of these issues is good. And, let’s be honest, no one would be having this conversation if this was more boring, government-speak content… The point isn’t to be overly mean to Musk, though he can handle it. It’s to generate the conversation about the role of tech, public investment in infrastructure, income inequality, the love our society shows for CEOs, etc.,” the account tweeted.

While Musk’s ideas are not accepted by everyone, the purpose of the tweets seem to be questionable at best. Inciting conversation is a good and healthy thing. Why not talk about the upcoming tax season or other financial issues? Based on the tasteless nature of the PA Treasury’s tweet, as well as the fact that it deliberately used a false quote to gain attention, one could be compelled to infer that everything seems to be a ploy to gain social media traction by using Elon Musk’s name as a conversation starter.

As a Pennsylvania resident and someone who has lived here for 24 out of the 25 years I have been alive, this is very disappointing. I realize not everyone is going to agree with the ideas that Musk has, but to state that the Boring Company tunnels are an ineffective way to attack the traffic problems so many of us deal with, and making up a quote to get the point across, is simply incorrect. The Boring Company is a young entity and has been around for just over three years.

To put that into perspective, Tesla was formed in 2003 and did not begin delivering Tesla Roadsters until 2007. The Roadster was met with many issues and Tesla was not really considered a serious car company until the Model S began deliveries in June 2012 and the vehicle’s stellar reviews started coming in. Skeptics said Tesla would fail and that an electric car would never break through and become more appealing than a gas-powered automobile. Here we are in 2020 and Tesla’s most affordable sedan is consistently outselling comparable gas vehicles and causing the United States’ most popular luxury sedans to see low sales numbers.

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The issue is that Musk confronts issues head-on and tries to figure out out-of-the-box solutions. This is more than what most people do. If nobody was doing it, there would be nobody to criticize. However, Musk is trying to make life on Earth easier for all of us. So, why don’t we let the man do what he has done for years: Bring us closer to an environmentally-friendly and sustainable Earth.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Investor's Corner

Tesla has its answer to auto growth, it just has to bring it to the U.S.: analyst

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Credit: Tesla China

Tesla has its answer to grow its automotive sales over the next few years, TD Cowen analyst Itay Michaeli says, but it just has to bring it to the U.S.

On Thursday, Michaeli reiterated his $490 price target and the ‘Buy’ rating he already held on Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA). However, its automotive division has struggled to show sequential growth over the past few years, mostly due to its focus on AI and Full Self-Driving. Tesla already axed two of its lower-volume vehicles with the Model S and Model X earlier this year.

However, Tesla does not need to engineer an entire new vehicle to trigger an upward tick in sales; it just has to bring it from China to the U.S., Michaeli said.

He is talking about the Model Y L, a slightly larger version of the all-electric crossover that is already available in China. U.S. customers have been pleading with CEO Elon Musk to bring it to the country since its launch in Asia last year, but he’s not convinced of it because of the advent of self-driving and its importance in this particular market.

The problem is that Tesla owners have been requesting something larger that could fit a typical American family. The Model Y L is slightly larger than the standard Model Y, but some are concerned that it could still be too small to fit what most people might need.

Instead, they have asked for a full-size SUV from Tesla.

Tesla gives big hint that it will build Cyber SUV, smaller Cybertruck

Nevertheless, the Model Y L still presents a great opportunity for Tesla in the U.S., and Michaeli says that there is an additional sales opportunity of about 100,000 units, with demand potential falling somewhere between 60,000 and 135,000 units.

TD Cowen’s note to investors also analyzed that Tesla’s growth could come from a stock perspective as well, positively impacting the stock price, as it has been widely reliant on vehicle sales, even though Tesla has truly phased itself away from that being an important metric.

Tesla stands to gain greatly from the introduction of the Model Y L in the U.S., but only if Elon Musk sees it as a viable fit for the market. Families may need to see Tesla bring something larger to the U.S., or they might be forced to buy from another automaker that offers something that fits is needs for more interior space to haul around the kids.

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Tesla Hardware 3 owners could be made whole this month

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tesla-asia-model-3
Credit: Tesla Asia/Twitter

Tesla Hardware 3 owners are set to get a new Full Self-Driving version this month as the company plans to release what it is referring to as v14 Lite.

The rollout is not yet confirmed for June, but Tesla executives have stated on several occasions that this more refined FSD iteration will work with their cars and increase its capabilities.

This comes after Tesla admitted during its last Earnings Call that these Hardware 3 vehicles would not be able to achieve Full Self-Driving, something that they did not know when they bought these cars. We regularly receive messages from Hardware 3 owners asking when v14 Lite will come out, what they should expect, and whether it is worth it to upgrade the self-driving computer or buy a new car altogether.

It is hard not to feel for them; Tesla CEO Elon Musk said at the company’s 2019 Autonomy Day that all vehicles produced at the time, including Hardware 3 cars, had “all the hardware necessary, compute and otherwise, for Full Self-Driving.”

Musk also said in March of that year that, “Anyone who purchased Full Self-Driving will get FSD computer upgrade for free.”

However, during the Q1 2026 Earnings Call, Musk admitted that Hardware 3 vehicles would not be capable of FSD, as “It has only 1/8th the memory bandwidth of Hardware 4, and memory bandwidth is one of the key elements needed for unsupervised FSD.”

Tesla has made some effort to remedy these Hardware 3 owners by offering:

  • Discounted trade-ins toward AI4 cars
  • Hardware retrofits, which would replace the self-driving computer and upgrade all cameras
  • Full Self-Driving v14 Lite

The issue is that many of these owners were led to believe their cars would be capable of unsupervised self-driving. Now, they’re left scrambling for options, and while there are several, they will all require more money out of their pockets.

Expectations for Tesla v14 Lite for Hardware 3 Owners

The big differences between the AI4 v14 and v14 Lite for Hardware 3 owners will stem primarily from hardware constraints. Tesla developed v14 Lite with an optimized frame of mind; the v14 neural nets are toned down to run on an HW3 computer.

Tesla v14 will use the same behavior, but its limits will be hardware-related, especially given that the cameras on HW3 vehicles are lower-resolution.

Tesla reveals its plans for Hardware 3 owners who are eager for updates

This will result in potentially more edge cases due to the lower quality perception and less long-range detection, but reaction time and overall confidence should be more refined.

There should also be a handful of additional features that are available on AI4 cars, such as:

  • Starting Full Self-Driving from Park
  • Auto Shift
  • Streaks
  • Speed Profiles
  • Improved Dynamics, like Pulling Over for Emergency Vehicles

Tesla plans to release v14 Lite this month, but we are all familiar with how the company can be with timelines. Additionally, if v14 Lite has not proven to be ready for a wide release, Tesla will slam the brakes on the rollout.

We would anticipate that Tesla is testing v14 Lite internally, and likely has been for several months.

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Elon Musk

SpaceXAI just launched into your kitchen with their new app

SpaceXAI just powered its first consumer app and it predicts what you want to buy.

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SpaceXAI just made its first move into consumer AI, and it involves your grocery cart. On June 3, 2026, Gopuff and SpaceXAI announced the launch of Go, a Grok-powered shopping assistant built directly into the Gopuff app that predicts what you need before you even start searching for it.

Gopuff is an instant delivery platform that operates more than 400 micro-fulfillment centers across the U.S., delivering everyday essentials, snacks, drinks, and household items in as little as 15 minutes. It is not a restaurant delivery app or a marketplace. It owns its inventory, controls its warehouses, and handles its own logistics, which means it has built one of the most detailed consumer behavior datasets in retail over its 13-year history.

Go combines SpaceXAI’s advanced reasoning, voice, and image generation models with Gopuff’s dataset of hundreds of millions of orders and real-time cultural signals from X to prepare a suggested cart the moment a customer opens the app. It learns each shopper’s habits and automatically builds a personalized cart based on time of day, location, order history, and real-time indicators. Returning customers can check out with a single tap.


Rather than searching for specific items, users can describe a situation like a game-day party or the desire for a healthy breakfast and Go will assemble a cart automatically. It can also predict when shoppers are running low on items like coffee or paper towels and have them packed and delivered in under 15 minutes. Grok voice integration lets users talk to the app in plain conversational language and check out completely hands-free.

Gopuff co-founder and co-CEO Yakir Gola said: “Today, we believe the greatest friction left in commerce is not delivery or instantaneous access to the essentials customers need. It’s the moment before: the thinking, the deciding, the remembering. We’re combining Gopuff’s demand intelligence with xAI’s frontier reasoning to create an everyday shopping experience that feels like a true extension of you.”

Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO

The timing carries context beyond the product launch. SpaceXAI was formed after SpaceX completed an all-stock merger with Elon Musk’s xAI earlier this year, folding one of the most advanced AI labs in the world into the same corporate structure as the company preparing what could be the largest IPO in history. SpaceXAI is dipping into consumer-focused AI just as it prepares for its public debut, and while Musk has openly discussed building an everything app, this launch uses Grok to power another company’s product rather than launching a standalone consumer platform. Every consumer-facing deployment of Grok ahead of the IPO roadshow adds tangible evidence that SpaceXAI is not just an infrastructure play but a direct competitor in the AI application layer where OpenAI and Google are already fighting for dominance.

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