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Elon Musk provides critical context on hotly-debated “emerald mine” story
There are several points of legitimate criticism that are directed at Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Among the most persistent involves claims about an emerald mine, which critics on social media have related to Musk’s fortune and success being built on the back of “stolen jewels,” “blood diamonds,” or “apartheid,” for that matter.
Considering the prevalence of the story, it was no wonder that the claim emerged on Twitter this weekend. This time around, it came in the form of a Community Note on Twitter, which responded to a user’s post stating that Musk had come to the US with no money and graduated with over $100,000 in debt, and that the CEO worked two jobs while he was at school.
As per the Community Note, which has since disappeared from the post, the post was reportedly “misleading” because Musk “was born into an extremely wealthy family in South Africa.” The Community Note received polarizing reactions on Twitter, with supporters of the CEO stating that it was inaccurate and critics celebrating it.
The Musk Emerald Story’s Roots
It should be noted that the Musk family’s relation to an emerald mine was referenced years ago, initially in two reports from Business Insider South Africa from 2018. The reports were based on comments from Errol Musk, Elon Musk’s father, who told the publication, among other things, that Elon and Kimbal at one time sold a pair of emeralds to Tiffany’s in New York City for about $2,000, and that the Musk family was so wealthy that they had difficulty closing their safe.
Now, the idea of Tiffany’s purchasing emeralds from teenagers who walked in the store may be a bit suspect, as such practices are more commonly affiliated with traditional pawnshops, and the idea of a safe not being closed easily because of too much money inside may sound cartoony, but Business Insider South Africa ran with the story anyway. At the end of the article, however, the publication noted that Errol’s story could not be confirmed by Elon because the father and son have a complicated history.
Elon Musk’s Changing Narrative
What is rather interesting here is that Musk has actually referenced an emerald mine in past interviews as well. In a 2014 interview with Forbes, Musk noted that “This is going to sound slightly crazy, but my father also had a share in an Emerald mine in Zambia.” In posts on Twitter in December 2019, however, Musk noted that his father “didn’t own an emerald mine.” Granted, there’s a notable difference between “owning” a mine and “having a share” in one, but the apparent change in Musk’s narrative is notable.
The Crucial Piece
Fortunately, Musk’s recent post on Twitter provided some critical context on why his own interviews and later posts and comments contradict each other. As noted by Musk in his recent post, he actually believed that it was true for some time because his father told him that he owned a share in a mine in Zambia. However, it appears that nobody has really seen the mine, and he and his brother Kimbal are still financially supporting their father, even until today. Musk also shared some thoughts on his complicated relationship with his father.
“Our condition of providing him financial support was that he not engage in bad behavior. Unfortunately, he nonetheless did. There are young children involved, so we continued to provide financial support for their well-being. Regarding the so-called “emerald mine”, there is no objective evidence whatsoever that this mine ever existed. He told me that he owned a share in a mine in Zambia, and I believed him for a while, but nobody has ever seen the mine, nor are there any records of its existence. If this mine was real, he would not require financial support from my brother and me,” Musk wrote.
Whether or not Musk is telling the complete truth in his recent post on Twitter is still up for question. That being said, Musk’s post does explain why his comments and stance on his father’s emerald mine stake have changed over the years. If his post is accurate, then it is true that he believed that his father had a share in an emerald mine in the past, but it is also true that he is very skeptical of the claim today. His recent comments then, one of which is offering 1 million Dogecoins to anyone who can trace the emerald mine related to his father, would make sense.
Maye Musk, Elon Musk’s mother, also provided her own thoughts on the matter. As per Maye, she was made aware of the emerald mine story on Twitter about ten years ago. That being said, she also highlighted that when she and her children moved to Toronto in 1989, they stayed at a one-bedroom apartment and later a rent-controlled unit, hardly the accommodations of an extremely wealthy family from South Africa.
Errol Musk’s Most Recent Comments
To be fair, recent comments from Errol Musk also suggested that the emerald mine that he had a share in was not some grand operation that resulted in generational wealth.
“What Elon is saying is that there was no formal mine. It was a rock formation protruding from the ground in the middle of nowhere. There was no mining company. There are no signed agreements or financial statements. No one owned anything. The deal was done on a handshake with the Italian man at a time when Zambia was a free for all. Not even he knew exactly where the border was. At that time, it was like the Wild West,” Errol Musk told news.com.au.
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SpaceX’s Raptor engine family has steadily increased sea-level thrust while simultaneously reducing mass, turning iterative engineering gains into substantially higher performance for the Super Heavy booster. CEO Elon Musk shed more light on how powerful Raptor 4 will be, and it’s pretty crazy.
Raptor 1 delivered 185 metric tons of thrust at roughly 2,080 kilograms, while Raptor 2 raised that to 230 tons while cutting mass to about 1,630 kilograms. SpaceX data for Raptor 3 lists a target of 280 tons at 1,525 kilograms (with further reductions in associated vehicle hardware), while operational flight ratings have been cited near 250 tons.
This morning, Elon Musk stated that Raptor 4 is expected to reach 300 tons of sea-level thrust at roughly the same mass as Raptor 3. Across these versions, thrust has risen by more than 60 percent from the first engines while engine mass has fallen, producing a sharp improvement in thrust-to-weight ratio. This is a true testament to how great SpaceX engineering has been:
🚀 Elon says Raptor 4 will make 300 tons of thrust at sea level at roughly the same mass as Raptor 3.
How far Raptor has come:
Raptor 1: 185 tf, 2,080 kg
Raptor 2: 230 tf, 1,630 kg
Raptor 3: 250 tf, 1,525 kg
Raptor 4: 300 tf33 on Super Heavy = ~9,900 tf, nearly 3x Saturn V https://t.co/HQDswZhyvL
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
With 33 engines on SuperHeavy, the jump from earlier versions to a 300-ton Raptor 4 would produce roughly 9,900 metric tons of total liftoff thrust, nearly three times the Saturn V’s approximately 3,400 metric tons from its five F-1 engines.
This is not just a larger number on a data sheet, either, as sea-level thrust is the force available the moment the vehicle leaves the pad. This is when it is heaviest and still deep in Earth’s gravity well and dense atmosphere.
Higher levels of sea-level thrust directly improves the initial thrust-to-weight ratio of the full stack. A higher ratio produces faster acceleration off the pad, which shortens the time the rocket has to spend fighting gravity, and gravity losses during the first minute or two of the flight are a major drain on total available delta-v. Every second shaved off of that early climb preserves more propellant energy for reaching orbital velocity or for carrying extra payload.
Because Super Heavy’s engine count is constrained by vehicle diameter and packing density, increasing thrust per engine is the most straightforward way to raise total liftoff performance without redesigning the booster structure or design.
The same-mass target for Raptor 4 is equally important. Holding engine mass roughly constant while raising thrust improves the engine’s own thrust-to-weight ratio and reduces the structural and propellant mass fraction that must be carried solely to support the engines.
Earlier Raptor iterations also simplified or eliminated extensive vehicle-side hardware such as heat shields. These gains compound: more force for less installed mass leaves additional capacity for propellant, payload, or operational margins such as engine-out capability.
For Starship’s architecture, the practical effects are large. Greater liftoff thrust supports heavier vehicles, larger propellant loads, and higher payloads to low Earth orbit, figures SpaceX has targeted in the 100-plus-ton reusable range. That capacity underpins orbital refueling, lunar missions, and eventual Mars cargo and crew flights.
Continued growth in sea-level thrust therefore tightens the gap between theoretical rocket performance and the high flight rates and reusability needed to make large-scale space transport practical.
Tesla has expanded its Tesla Assisted Driving (TAD) suite to its tenth European country, as Latvia joined a growing list of European Union member states authorizing the company’s advanced driver assistance technology.
Tesla Europe announced this morning that the system is now approved in Latvia, with a software rollout to begin soon.
The approval and rollout follow recognition of a provisional European type approval originally granted by the Netherlands’ RDW authority on April 10.
🚨 Latvia has just received approval for Tesla Full Self-Driving (Supervised)
This is the 10th country in the EU to gain approval:
1. Netherlands — 10 April 2026 (original RDW approval)
2. Lithuania — 20 May 2026
3. Estonia — 29 May 2026
4. Denmark — 9 June 2026
5. Belgium — 10 June 2026
6. Slovenia — 7 September 2026
7. Czechia — 21 September 2026
8. Croatia — 29 September 2026
9. Slovakia — 16 October 2026— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
Latvia’s Road Traffic Safety Directorate (CSDD) evaluated the Dutch documentation, coordinated with the other national authorities, and reviewed updates from Tesla. These included tightened limits on speed offsets, automatic resets of any manual speed adjustments after each trip, and stronger driver monitoring.
In Europe, the feature is marketed as Tesla Assisted Driving after a recent rule change that labeled the name “Full Self-Driving” as misleading.
The system remains an SAE Level 2 driver assistance tool, not unsupervised autonomy. It can control speed, steering, braking, lane changes, and intersections while following a navigation route. Drivers need not keep their hands on the wheel at all times, yet they must continuously monitor the road and be prepared to intervene immediately.
The sequence of EU recognitions began with the Netherlands in April and continued through Lithuania, Estonia, Denmark, Belgium, Slovenia, Czechia, Croatia, and Slovakia. Most have relied on mutual recognition of the single Dutch provisional approval rather than independent national testing.
These national clearances do not yet constitute bloc-wide authorization. An EU-wide decision requires a qualified majority in the Technical Committee on Motor Vehicles: at least 15 of 27 member states representing 65 percent of the EU population. Larger markets, like Germany, France, and Italy, remain under review, and a vote is expected this December.
However, for Latvian Tesla owners with compatible vehicles and software, the imminent rollout expands access to the supervised system while underscoring that attentive human oversight remains essential.
Tesla expanded its Robotaxi geofence in Houston, Texas, today, enlarging the service area and drawing a new rocket-shaped boundary across the city’s northwestern and central parts.
Although CEO Elon Musk said it was just a coincidence, the expansion seems to be an ode to SpaceX and its potential merger with Tesla.
🚨 Tesla has just expanded its Robotaxi geofence in Houston
It looks a lot like a rocket — we all remember the shape in Austin 🤣 https://t.co/cFOPEuiJ4u
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 26, 2026
The official Tesla Robotaxi account announced the change with the lines “Houston, we have liftoff” and “Bigger service area now live,” pairing them with a map overlay.
The prior white geofence, roughly 25 square miles covering Jersey Village, Harvest Bend, and the Willowbrook corridor along U.S. 290 and State Highway 249, now sits inside a larger blue zone that stretches southeast toward Bellair and closer to central Houston.
Houston’s Robotaxi service launched on April 18, 2026, the same day as Dallas, as Tesla’s first unsupervised public expansion beyond Austin. From the start, the vehicles were Model Ys running without anyone in the front seats, booked through the dedicated Tesla Robotaxi app and open to the public inside the geofence.
Trackers measured the initial zone at about 25 square miles; by late September it had not grown substantially. Community and registry data indicated a modest local fleet of unsupervised Model Ys, while dozens to nearly 200 Cybercabs, the purpose-built, steering-wheel-free two-seaters, have been spotted staging and testing in Houston lots, though public Cybercab rides remain limited to Austin for now.
Across the broader Robotaxi program, Tesla began public Robotaxi rides in Austin in June 2025, as a small geofence and vehicles with safety monitors became available for a ride-hailing service. Later on, Tesla removed the monitors and steadily expanded the service area until it covered most of the Austin metro area.
Unsupervised Robotaxi services now run in six cities: Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Orlando, and Tampa. Cumulative driverless miles reported by the company have reached several million. The Cybercab entered public service in Austin in early September 2026 and has scaled rapidly there. The company has also said that Dallas is next for Cybercab rides in November, with further cities and 24/7 hours targeted by year-end, plus fleet-operator sales of the vehicle.
Waymo also operates a fully driverless service in Houston, which has been open to the public since August of this year.
The Houston expansion continues Tesla’s pattern of starting with tightly controlled validation zones before widening coverage as real-world data accumulates, while the rocket motif on the map underscores the company’s habit of injecting visual flair into its autonomy rollout.
Riders inside the new boundary can request unsupervised Model Y trips in the Robotaxi app; exact operating hours and further Cybercab availability remain subject to app updates and company statements.
How SpaceX Is raising Raptor’s sea-level thrust while holding engine mass steady
Tesla Assisted Driving expands to tenth EU country
