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Pablo Escobar’s brother wants $100 million in Tesla shares for Not-a-Flamethrower dispute
Elon Musk is no stranger to taking on powerful forces that stand in the way of his Earth-changing missions, but drug lord families still seem like an odd addition to the list. Despite the improbability, infamous cartel founder and cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar has recently been linked to the serial entrepreneur over The Boring Company’s Not-a-Flamethrower, specifically through Escobar’s brother. Roberto Escobar claims Musk stole the Flamethrower design from him and plans to sue over it – unless Musk agrees to hand over $100 million dollars in either cash or Tesla shares, that is.
“Elon we both know you stole from me, I am OK to settle this right now for $100 million. Tesla shares is OK or cash. I will win in court, and you will lose more than $100 million,” Escobar said in a statement to The Next Web. “Maybe I will make myself new Tesla CEO with the courts?… Let’s settle this like gentleman. Send me the Tesla Shares to Escobar Inc.”
Someone associated with Musk’s business activities reportedly spent time with Escobar (the living brother, not the deceased drug lord) in the summer of 2017 wherein an Escobar Inc. toy flamethrower concept was discussed, according to a report originally published by TMZ. The Boring Company’s Flamethrower, announced in January 2018, apparently was a dead ringer for Escobar’s idea design-wise, leading cartel leader’s brother to angrily conclude that his idea had been stolen. Musk later responded to TMZ‘s report on Twitter, saying “It’s Not a Flamethrower, Mr Escobar.”
The dispute is interesting and unusual, to say the least, but we can be sure there’s one thing Boring clearly did not get from Escobar Inc. – the flamethrower’s purpose.
“I want the people to be able to burn money, like me and Pablo used to do. I burned probably a couple of billion dollars over the years. Literally burning the money. For many reasons,” Escobar was quoted as saying about the device.
Escobar is now weighing his legal options against Musk, although it’s not clear what options are exactly available.
Prior to 2013, if an inventor could demonstrate their invention predated someone else’s patented invention for the same thing, they could sue and work out a financially retroactive deal to be compensated for their work (more or less). However, with the enactment of the America Invents Act, the United States now has a “first to file” system that only gives inventors one year from public disclosure of their invention to file for patent protection. In Escobar’s case, he’s basically too late to file for a patent where it would matter most to Musk – in the United States. The only other legal workaround would seem to be a lawsuit over a non-disclosure agreement, which doesn’t appear to have happened here. It’s not enough that there were witnesses to the discussion, and it also doesn’t seem like there was even a handshake-type understanding over any claims to the design.
Another thing worth mentioning is that if The Boring Company has already filed for patent protection of its Not-a-Flamethrower design, it doesn’t appear to have published yet based on patent database searches. Since the idea was disclosed in January 2018 (or even 2017, based on Escobar’s claims), it’s now considered ‘prior art’ and renders any other highly similar patent filings ineligible for protection. It would appear that Escobar’s best bet for legal protection would have been to file for a patent right after Musk’s flamethrower was announced so both devices would have been in that muddy one-year window and open to a court fight. Alas, it’s all water under the bridge now.
The Boring Company had a few options to pursue here, actually. First, the tunneling venture could have filed for a design patent which only protects what their flamethrower looks like. These types of patent applications usually issue to full patents quickly unless the patent examiner objects to it based on similar designs. If Boring went this route, we should see a patent show up shortly if one was filed around the time of the product announcement in January 2018.
A second option The Boring Company could have taken was to file for a utility patent, meaning there was some sort of technical merit to the Not-a-Flamethrower’s design. These publish 18 months after filing unless non-publication is specifically requested. If Boring went this route, well, there are so many timelines that could have been taken, it’s hard to say whether we’ll see anything until a patent issues, assuming one issues at all. Regardless, the patent route was Escobar’s only real route for lawsuit-driven compensation, and he seems out of luck.
Perhaps in response to recent publicity, the Escobar Inc. Flamethrower just went on sale for $250, and according to its company website’s History page, 20,000 units will be produced. This, of course, is the exact amount the Boring Company sold at the original price of $500. Among other interesting news items, one of the gems from that same History page reads, “2004 – Roberto de Jesus Escobar Gaviria is freed from Itagui Prison based on excellent behavior.” This important moment in the Escobar Inc. chronicles is surely only matched by the successful launch of Escobar Inc.’s Flamethrower for burning cold hard cash in cocaine kingpin fashion.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk just confirmed the Tesla and SpaceX merger step everyone was waiting for
Tesla and SpaceX formed special committees to weigh a merger, and Elon Musk supports it.
Elon Musk confirmed Tuesday that Tesla and SpaceX have each formed special committees of independent directors to study a possible merger, the first formal step toward combining the two companies after months of speculation.
Musk made the disclosure during SpaceX’s third quarter earnings call. “Both SpaceX and Tesla have formed special committees to discuss this idea at the request of shareholders,” he said. “Because I’m a conflicted party, I can’t actually be in the discussions of the special committees.” He described the setup as “an odd kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation.”
Musk did not hide where he stands. “Do I think it would be a good idea? Yes,” he said, pointing to shared work on super intelligence software, chip design, the Terafab facility in Austin, robotics, mass to orbit and connectivity. “I do think there’s a lot of merit to combining the companies as we are pretty much in the super intelligence singularity.”
He also tried to cool expectations. The committees have not agreed on terms for any transaction, and Musk said assuming a merger is a certainty “would be overstating it.” Any deal would go to shareholders, and on the Tesla side it would need approval from 50 percent of all outstanding shares, not just the shares that are voted. Musk called that “quite a high hurdle.”
That bar has tripped Tesla up before. The company’s 2025 attempt to declassify its board won support from only 39.4 percent of outstanding shares and failed. Musk’s own voting stake sits near 20 percent after he exercised his 2018 options in June, so a deal would need broad backing from institutions and a retail base that often leaves votes uncast.
Timing is another open question. Tesla filed its proxy statement Monday for its December 3 annual meeting, and the ballot has only three items: director elections for Musk, Robyn Denholm and JB Straubel, a say on pay vote and auditor ratification. Barclays analyst Dan Levy had argued that an announcement would need to land by late October or early November to make the annual meeting, as Teslarati noted in its SpaceX earnings preview. With no terms agreed, any vote would likely require its own special meeting.
Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet
Musk has been edging toward this for weeks. At the All-In Summit in September, he asked “who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration,” Teslarati reported. Last week’s Roadster unveil, built around SpaceX derived cold gas thrusters, pushed the talk further. The two companies already share the Terafab chip project, and Tesla holds a small SpaceX stake that came from its earlier investment in xAI.
SpaceX brought strong numbers to the conversation. It reported Q3 revenue of $14.58 billion, up 161 percent year over year, with its Super Intelligence segment now its largest at $7.56 billion. A higher SpaceX valuation would shape any exchange ratio Tesla holders are offered.
Tesla reports its own third quarter results after the close on Wednesday, October 21. Investors had already ranked merger timing among the top retail questions for SpaceX’s call, and the committees will almost certainly come up again on Tesla’s.
SpaceX reported its third-quarter 2026 financial results on October 20, posting the company’s first solidly profitable quarter since going public earlier in the year under the ticker $SPCX.
Revenue reached $14.58 billion, up 161 percent year-over-year from $5.6 billion, and well ahead of consensus estimates in the $12.7 to $12.9 billion range. The results highlight a rapid shift in SpaceX’s center of gravity toward artificial intelligence/super intelligence, while Starlink and traditional space operations continue to show robust progress.
Here are the key financial results for the quarter:
- Revenue of $14.58 billion (+161% YoY)
- Adjusted EBITDA of $8.8 billion (+306% YoY)
- GAAP net income of $4.4 billion (versus a $1.1 billion net loss in the prior-year quarter)
- Adjusted EPS of approximately $0.35 (versus roughly $0.13–0.16 expected)
- Income from operations of $2.8 billion
The AI/SI segment generated $7.56 billion in revenue, an 830 percent year-over-year increase, making it the company’s largest segment for the first time. Growth was primarily driven by the activation of major cloud services agreements, the integration of Cursor (acquired earlier in 2026), and rising usage of Grok models and the newly introduced Grok Bot personal agent.
🚨 SpaceX just reported earnings! Here are some highlights:
Financial:
Revenue $14.58B (+161% YoY) vs. consensus ~$12.7–12.9B
Adjusted EBITDA $8.8B (+306% YoY)
GAAP net income $4.4B (vs. prior-year loss; first solidly profitable quarter post-IPO)
Adjusted EPS ~$0.35 vs. ~$0.13–0.16 expectedSegments:
Super Intelligence (SI, formerly AI): $7.56B (+830% YoY) — now the largest segment, driven by cloud contracts, Cursor, and Grok.
Connectivity (Starlink): $5.25B (+69% YoY).
Space: $1.77B.Other highlights:
Starlink subscribers: 13.6M (+89% YoY).
Nameplate compute: 1.7 GW.
Capex: $19.6B (majority AI infrastructure).
Cash & marketable securities: ~$90B.
First revenue-generating Starship mission (26 V3 Starlink satellites, ~10× Falcon 9 downlink capacity per launch).— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 20, 2026
SI adjusted EBITDA reached $5 billion, and nameplate compute capacity stood at 1.7 GW at quarter-end, up from 1.4 GW in June and 0.6 GW a year earlier. Capital expenditures totaled $19.6 billion, with the majority allocated to AI infrastructure, including continued expansion of the Colossus facilities.
The Connectivity segment, which primarily surrounds Starlink, produced $5.25 billion in revenue, a 69 percent year-over-year and 22 percent sequentially. These are pleasant results to see and expected, considering how many airlines have adopted Starlink over the past year.
Starlink consumer subscribers reached 13.6 million, an 89 percent increase from the prior year, and a sequential gain of 1.6 million. Consumer average revenue per user improved to $69. Meanwhile, Enterprise and Government revenue also grew strongly, and Starlink is now installed on more than 3,800 aircraft, making internet more accessible and better performing than previous options.
The Space segment also performed well and contributed $1.77 billion in revenue, up 6 percent year-over-year and 84 percent sequentially. A major milestone was the successful first revenue-generating Starship mission (Flight 14), which deployed 26 V3 Starlink satellites. Those satellites added roughly 10 times the downlink capacity of a typical Falcon 9 Starlink launch.
SpaceX completed 12 customer launches during the quarter, including NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope mission, and continued to grow its backlog of crewed, national security, and commercial flights.
CFO commentary noted that the combination of launch leadership, recurring Starlink revenue, and rapid SI expansion is producing meaningful operating leverage.
The company ended the quarter with roughly $90 billion in cash and marketable securities, providing substantial resources for ongoing investment while targeting an investment-grade balance sheet. Sequential revenue nearly doubled from the $7.81 billion reported in the second quarter, illustrating the pace of the AI-driven acceleration. Things are looking strong for SpaceX.
What’s incredibly striking is the fact that SI has grown to be larger than the rest of the company in such a short amount of time. CEO Elon Musk said on the earnings call that Grok Bot is the “fastest-growing product I’ve ever seen,” so it seems that it could be a true keystone of SpaceXSI over the next few years.
SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) will report its second public earnings call today since its IPO earlier this year, and there are a few things we expect to hear about, as well as Wall Street analysts, who have already outlined their expectations for the call.
Wall Street analysts have a consensus of $12.72 billion in revenue and an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.13. These are broken down into three sectors: Space, Connectivity, and AI/SI, which are perceived in this way:
- Space: $1.41 billion
- Connectivity: $4.84 billion
- AI/SI: $6.47 billion
Other outlets cluster near $12.8 or $12.9 billion in revenue and $0.14 – $0.15 EPS. This implies a roughly 65 percent sequential growth from Q2’s $7.81 billion, driven mostly by AI/SI, with the first post-IPO positive EPS expected.
Here are the three things to watch for on the call:
AI Revenue Ramp and the $100B+ ARR target
AI is truly the swing factor for SpaceX, and analysts expect it to roughly double from Q2’s $2.56 billion and become about half of total revenue. Management previously guided to a $100 billion+ annualized run rate by December, including the Cursor acquisition, which was $60 billion, to close the quarter.
Listen for updates on SpaceX’s compute capacity, especially pertaining to its contracts with Google, Anthropic, and others, revenue per watt, any new deals, and Cursor’s early contribution.
Starlink/Connectivity Metrics and Mobile Expansion
Connectivity remains a main profit engine for SpaceX. Subscriber additions will be something to pay attention to, as Q2 ended at 12 million and previews are looking at 14 million for this quarter. Additionally, ARPU trends, enterprise and government growth, and any commentary on Starlink Mobile will be something to pay attention to, especially following the recent low-band spectrum deal and FCC-related constellation approvals.
Capex Trajectory, Cash Burn/FCF, and Starship/Operational Updates
Q2 capex of roughly $18.4 billion weighed on the stock. Investors will look to scrutinize Q3 spending levels, any guidance on the pace into Q4/2027, free cash flow, backlog, and liquidity. Operational color on Starship (Flight 14 milestones and Flight 15 timing/reusability progress), Falcon cadence, and government/NASA contracts are also in focus.
Of course, there will also be some speculation on the potential Tesla-SpaceX merger, but there was nothing mentioned in the company’s proxy it sent earlier this week.
SpaceX will report earnings after market close today and will stream the call on X.
Watch live as SpaceX discusses our Q3 2026 earnings at 3:30pm CT today → https://t.co/Qrb0qeVG15
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 20, 2026
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