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Elon Musk and Israel in discussions about Boring Company transport project
Elon Musk’s tunnel digging technology developed by The Boring Company is being eyed by Israel as a potential solution to the country’s traffic and public transportation woes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu revealed at a recent campaign event that his government was in talks with the serial entrepreneur about tapping into Boring’s tunneling solutions to address infrastructure concerns.
“I met a man that they call Elon Musk — have you heard of him? A real genius,” Netanyahu said, as published in a report by Bloomberg. ““Right now we’re in conversation with him to see if we can tunnel the State of Israel.” The two men’s discussion took place at the Prime Minister’s residence over a breakfast.
Israel’s population growth has outpaced its infrastructure development thanks to an immigration influx and a surge in economic growth over the last two decades. Its small geographic area – about 290 miles long and 85 miles across at its widest – requires innovative solutions that take its space limitations into account when it comes to transportation solutions.
Several underground rail projects are underway in Israel; however, only one subway system is currently running in the country. It will remain that way until the planned Tel Aviv Light Rail lines become operational, the earliest planned for 2021 to the tune of $3 billion dollars for 14 miles of line. When compared to The Boring Company’s prior expenditure of only $10 million per mile of tunnel, it’s perhaps understandable why Israel would be interested in Musk’s improved digging technology.
Although the Boring Company hasn’t captured many headlines since its Monty Python watchtower days since its Hawthorne test tunnel completion, interest in the developed technology hasn’t waned with those who could benefit from its potential. In Las Vegas, a proposed two-mile transport line to be constructed by Musk’s company was recently approved by the city’s Convention and Visitors Authority board of directors. As planned, a series of underground tunnels will be dug by Boring, encompassing the local convention center and possibly expand to the McCarran International Airport. The estimated cost is between $35 and $55 million, and its completion set for the end of 2019, according to Musk.
The Boring Company’s planned high-speed transit tunnel connecting O’Hare International Airport with downtown Chicago is also still in the works despite criticism from local officials. Musk has estimated a cost of around $1 billion for the 18-mile project, none of which will be a taxpayer burden due to private investment. These private funding plans are a big source of skepticism surrounding Musk’s tunneling project, but enough support within Chicago’s government remains to continue moving forward.
The Hawthorne test tunnel, debuted on December 18th last year with fanfare and test rides, was constructed using a conventional tunnel boring machine (TBM) nicknamed Godot. The next iteration of Boring’s machines, an upgraded hybrid TBM named Line-Storm, will be operational any day now, according to Musk via Twitter. “Maybe active in a month or so. Focus right now is getting to high speed, tight follow distance in test tunnel,” he tweeted in reply to a status inquiry about Line-Storm at the end of February this year.
Line-Storm is estimated to be twice as fast as Gadot and will be succeeded by the all-electric Prufrock, a TBM being completely designed and built by The Boring Company. Prufrock will be 10-15x faster than than conventional machines, plus meet the energy and environmental standards driving all of Musk’s companies by having zero emissions.
Just as with Tesla’s Full Self-Driving technology, though, The Boring Company’s projects face regulatory hurdles and pushback that will likely be a determining factor in whether or not its many projects succeed. It remains to be seen whether Israel will have the same legal obstacles if its Prime Minister’s discussions with Musk manifest into any solid agreements.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
Elon Musk’s social media platform X will adopt a Tesla-esque approach to software updates for its algorithm.
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
X’s updates to its updates
As per Musk in a post on X, the social media company will be making a new algorithm to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users. These updates would then be repeated every four weeks.
“We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days. This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed,” Musk wrote in his post.
The initiative somewhat mirrors Tesla’s over-the-air update model, where vehicle software is regularly refined and pushed to users with detailed release notes. This should allow users to better understand the details of X’s every update and foster a healthy feedback loop for the social media platform.
xAI and X
X, formerly Twitter, has been acquired by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI last year. Since then, xAI has seen a rapid rise in valuation. Following the company’s the company’s upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, estimates now suggest that xAI is worth tens about $230 to $235 billion. That’s several times larger than Tesla when Elon Musk received his controversial 2018 CEO Performance Award.
As per xAI, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others. Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.
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Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has been named the best driver-assistance technology on the market, earning top honors at the 2026 MotorTrend Best Tech Awards.
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system. And it wasn’t even close.
MotorTrend reverses course
MotorTrend awarded Tesla FSD (Supervised) its 2026 Best Tech Driver Assistance title after extensive testing of the latest v14 software. The publication acknowledged that it had previously criticized earlier versions of FSD for erratic behavior and near-miss incidents, ultimately favoring rivals such as GM’s Super Cruise in earlier evaluations.
According to MotorTrend, the newest iteration of FSD resolved many of those shortcomings. Testers said v14 showed far smoother behavior in complex urban scenarios, including unprotected left turns, traffic circles, emergency vehicles, and dense city streets. While the system still requires constant driver supervision, judges concluded that no other advanced driver-assistance system currently matches its breadth of capability.
Unlike rival systems that rely on combinations of cameras, radar, lidar, and mapped highways, Tesla’s FSD operates using a camera-only approach and is capable of driving on city streets, rural roads, and freeways. MotorTrend stated that pure utility, the ability to handle nearly all road types, ultimately separated FSD from competitors like Ford BlueCruise, GM Super Cruise, and BMW’s Highway Assistant.
High cost and high capability
MotorTrend also addressed FSD’s pricing, which remains significantly higher than rival systems. Tesla currently charges $8,000 for a one-time purchase or $99 per month for a subscription, compared with far lower upfront and subscription costs from other automakers. The publication noted that the premium is justified given FSD’s unmatched scope and continuous software evolution.
Safety remained a central focus of the evaluation. While testers reported collision-free operation over thousands of miles, they noted ongoing concerns around FSD’s configurable driving modes, including options that allow aggressive driving and speeds beyond posted limits. MotorTrend emphasized that, like all Level 2 systems, FSD still depends on a fully attentive human driver at all times.
Despite those caveats, the publication concluded that Tesla’s rapid software progress fundamentally reshaped the competitive landscape. For drivers seeking the most capable hands-on driver-assistance system available today, MotorTrend concluded Tesla FSD (Supervised) now stands alone at the top.
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Elon Musk’s Grokipedia surges to 5.6M articles, almost 79% of English Wikipedia
The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago.
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia has grown to an impressive 5,615,201 articles as of today, closing in on 79% of the English Wikipedia’s current total of 7,119,376 articles.
The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago. Needless to say, it would only be a matter of time before Grokipedia exceeds English Wikipedia in sheer volume.
Grokipedia’s rapid growth
xAI’s vision for Grokipedia emphasizes neutrality, while Grok’s reasoning capabilities allow for fast drafting and fact-checking. When Elon Musk announced the initiative in late September 2025, he noted that Grokipedia would be an improvement to Wikipedia because it would be designed to avoid bias.
At the time, Musk noted that Grokipedia “is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”
Grokipedia was launched in late October, and while xAI was careful to list it only as Version 0.1 at the time, the online encyclopedia immediately earned praise. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger highlighted the project’s innovative approach, noting how it leverages AI to fill knowledge gaps and enable rapid updates. Netizens also observed how Grokipedia tends to present articles in a more objective manner compared to Wikipedia, which is edited by humans.
Elon Musk’s ambitious plans
With 5,615,201 total articles, Grokipedia has now grown to almost 79% of English Wikipedia’s article base. This is incredibly quick, though Grokipedia remains text-only for now. xAI, for its part, has now updated the online encyclopedia’s iteration to v0.2.
Elon Musk has shared bold ideas for Grokipedia, including sending a record of the entire knowledge base to space as part of xAI’s mission to preserve and expand human understanding. At some point, Musk stated that Grokipedia will be renamed to Encyclopedia Galactica, and it will be sent to the cosmos.
“When Grokipedia is good enough (long way to go), we will change the name to Encyclopedia Galactica. It will be an open source distillation of all knowledge, including audio, images and video. Join xAI to help build the sci-fi version of the Library of Alexandria!” Musk wrote, adding in a later post that “Copies will be etched in stone and sent to the Moon, Mars and beyond. This time, it will not be lost.”
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
