Tesla’s Elon Musk and Hip-Hop Legend Kanye West are two industry leaders. Elon Musk is the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and the Boring Company, while Kanye has spent many years of his career as one of the best artists that the Hip-Hop/Rap genre has to offer. Both looked at as legends in their respective fields; the two men teamed up last week in a notorious picture that amassed hundreds of thousands of Retweets and Likes on Twitter.
Musk and West have a history as well. In December, Musk attended a party with Kanye and wife Kim Kardashian, accompanied by other rap superstars like Travis Scott and Quavo of “Migos.” Musk and Kanye, along with the other two artists, took pictures and celebrated the Holiday together.
The recent photograph, however, seemed to be a statement against the current Presidential Administration, as just a few days later, Kanye announced his intentions to run for the Office of President of the United States of America. The man who recorded some of rap’s most powerful songs would run as a representative of the “Birthday Party,” and the man who just led the first privatized company to put people into space would be the head of the West Administration’s Space Program.
You have my full support!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 5, 2020
West would continue a trend of U.S. Citizens electing celebrities with no “real” political experience into the White House. But, in all honesty, anything is worth a shot, right?
The partnership between Musk and West would be indicative of an administration comprised of two people who are Google’d more often than many people. West and Musk share a few similarities that have to deal with their fan bases. A cult-like following for both men follows their every move, justifying and supporting whatever the most recent choices of their respective idol are.
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As a fan of both individuals, I have called Elon Musk my favorite “businessperson” for several years, while Kanye has been my favorite “musical artist” since 2010. Both men, outspoken and passionate in their own rights, have attracted a type of attention that seems to be either love or hate, and there are very few people who are stuck in the middle.
Musk is a visionary. A man who sees a future past planet Earth and will do anything it takes to stop the destruction of the planet, along with the extinction of the human race. Developing sustainable transportation, backed up with a plan to escape the planet and head to Mars if things don’t go according to the Master Plan. Personally, I’ll never understand how someone can dislike the guy, but I have encountered people over the years who have refused to give Musk a chance to prove himself. Immediately writing him off, until they get an opportunity to ride in one of his cars, Musk is a man who speaks his mind, which is something of a dying breed. The CEO is one of the few examples of a “real” person that is left in this world, and to me, that is certainly respectable.
West is virtually no different, just more controversial. He has always been a man who has put his personal anecdotes into his music, lyrically. I remember when West confronted a paparazzi by taking his camera, which in turn became a lyric in the song “New Slaves,” where he described taking “recorders” from the paparazzo. The subjects of his music have been controversial, but they have described events in his life in a passionate way. After President Trump was elected, West showed up at the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York City to have a conversation. After dawning the red “Make America Great Again” hat, West made his support of the newly elected President clear.
“So go and grab the reporters
So I can smash their recorders”
-Kanye West, “New Slaves,” 2013
Since then, “Ye” has halted his support for the President. In an interview with Forbes, West stated that he was “taking the red hat off with this interview.” It may have been an indication that West was fed up with Trump’s response to any of the recent conflicts that have plagued our country. More than likely, however, it was a nod of seriousness that he would be running to take the Presidency from Trump.
The two men’s photograph together captured the essence of a stance against a man who has gone against what both men have stood for since the beginning of their journeys. Musk has aimed toward a sustainable future for transportation and energy. On the contrary, Trump has taken put both issues on hold in favor of coal and natural gas supply because of employment measures. However, Trump implemented tariffs of solar energy, which sent 62,000 jobs to other countries, something he promised not to do while campaigning for office.
Kanye, although vocally supportive of Trump for the past few years, has decided to officially retire his duties as a supporter of the President. However, he didn’t speak badly about Trump to Forbes, but did have quite a few things to say about Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
The essence of Kanye’s presidential campaign is backed by religious beliefs, which has been the main focus of the West family for a few years. Kanye has started a “Sunday Service,” which hosts a gospel Church service on most Sundays in the Los Angeles area. The events are aimed toward spreading love, equality, and the word of God, and his campaign seems to be no different.
Many of the questions based on his campaign techniques were answered with responses that would come from someone who is religious. But, nonetheless, West’s political campaign is young and untested, and he only has a few months to prepare before November.
Most recently, developments between Musk and West may have taken a turn. After West posted, and quickly deleted, an anti-abortion Tweet and claimed he was anti-vaccine, Musk claimed, “We may have more differences of opinion than I anticipated.”
The question is: Is West’s run toward the U.S. Presidency real? If he wins, will Musk be the Head of the Space Force? Can the two men find common ground on their differences if West wins the election?
Only time will tell.
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Elon Musk
Ford CEO Farley says Tesla is not who to look at for EV expertise
Interestingly, Farley has been one of the most hellbent CEOs in terms of a legacy automaker standpoint to push the EV effort. It did not go according to plan, as Ford took a $19.5 billion charge and retreated from its EV push in late 2025.
Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a recent podcast interview that Tesla is not who Americans should look at to beat Chinese carmakers.
The comments have sparked quite a bit of outrage from Tesla fans on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.
Farley said that Chinese automakers are better examples of how to beat competitors. He said (via the Rapid Response Podcast):
“If you’re an American and you want us to beat the Chinese in the car business, you’re all going to want to pay attention, not necessarily to Tesla. Nothing against Tesla—they’ve been doing great—but they really don’t have an updated vehicle. The best in the business for us, cost-wise and competition-wise, supply chain, manufacturing expertise, and the I.P. in the vehicle, was really BYD. In this next cycle of EV customers in the U.S., they want pickups and utilities and all these different body styles. But they want them at $30,000, not $50,000. Like the first inning, they want them affordably.”
Despite Farley’s synopsis, it is worth mentioning that Tesla had the best-selling passenger vehicle in the world last year, and in China in March, as the Model Y continued its global dominance over other vehicles.
Musk responded to Farley’s comments by stating:
“This is before Supervised FSD is approved in China. Limiting factor is production output in Shanghai.”
This is before supervised FSD is approved in China. Limiting factor is production output in Shanghai.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2026
Interestingly, Farley has been one of the most hellbent CEOs in terms of a legacy automaker standpoint to push the EV effort. It did not go according to plan, as Ford took a $19.5 billion charge and retreated from its EV push in late 2025.
Ford cancels all-electric F-150 Lightning, announces $19.5 billion in charges
Instead, Ford is “doubling down on its affordable” EVs and said it would pivot from its previous plans.
Reaction from Tesla fans was pretty much how you would expect. Many said they have lost a lot of respect for Farley after his comments; others believe he is the last CEO anyone should be taking advice on EVs from.
Nevertheless, Farley’s plans are bold and brash; many consider Tesla the most ideal company to replicate EV efforts from. It will be interesting to see if Ford can rebound from this big adjustment, and hopefully, Farley’s plans to replicate efforts from BYD work out the way he hopes.
Elon Musk
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
NASA awarded SpaceX a $175 million Mars rover contract while the White House proposes cutting the mission.
NASA just signed a $175.7 million contract with SpaceX to launch a Mars rover that the White House is simultaneously trying to defund. The contract, awarded on April 16, 2026, tasks SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy with launching the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosalind Franklin rover from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, no earlier than late 2028. It would mark the first time SpaceX has ever sent a payload to Mars.
Under NASA’s Rosalind Franklin Support and Augmentation project, known as ROSA, the agency is providing braking engines for the rover’s descent stage, radioisotope heater units that use decaying plutonium to keep the rover warm on the Martian surface, additional electronics, and a mass spectrometer instrument, as noted by SpaceNews.
Those nuclear heating units are the reason an American rocket was required at all. U.S. export controls on radioisotope technology mean any payload carrying them must launch on a domestic vehicle, which narrowed the field to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. Falcon Heavy’s pricing made it the practical choice.
SpaceX is quietly becoming the U.S. Military’s only reliable rocket
Falcon Heavy debuted in February 2018 and has 11 launches to its record. The rocket has not flown since October 2024, when it sent NASA’s Europa Clipper toward Jupiter. The three-core design, built from modified Falcon 9 first stages, gives it the lift capacity needed for deep space planetary missions that a single Falcon 9 cannot reach.
The Rosalind Franklin rover has been sitting in storage in Europe for years. It was originally due to launch in 2022 as a joint mission with Russia, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ended that partnership, leaving the rover built but stranded without a launch vehicle or landing hardware. NASA stepped back in through a 2024 agreement with ESA to rescue the mission. The rover is designed to drill up to two meters below the Martian surface in search of evidence of past life, a science objective no previous mission has attempted at that depth.
The contradiction at the center of this story is hard to ignore. The White House’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal included no funding for ROSA and did not mention the mission at all in the detailed congressional justification document released April 3.
Musk has long argued that reaching Mars is not optional. “We don’t want to be one of those single planet species, we want to be a multi-planet species.” Whether this particular mission survives Washington’s budget fight, the Falcon Heavy contract means SpaceX is now formally on record as the rocket that could get humanity’s next Mars science mission off the ground.
The timing of this contract carries extra weight given that SpaceX filed confidentially with the SEC in early April and is targeting an IPO roadshow in the week of June 8. It would be the largest public offering in history.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is set to hold its Earnings Call for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday, and there are a lot of interesting things that are swirling around in terms of speculation from investors.
With the company’s executives, including CEO Elon Musk, answering a handful of questions that investors submit through the Say platform, fans want to know a lot of things about a lot of things.
These five questions come from Retail Investors, who are normal, everyday shareholders:
- When will we have the Optimus v3 reveal? When will Optimus production start, since we ended the Model S and Model X production earlier than mid-year? What’s the expected Optimus production rate exiting this year? What are the initial targeted skills?
- What milestones are you targeting for unsupervised FSD and Robotaxi expansion beyond Austin this year, and how will that drive recurring revenue?
- How will Hardware 3 cars reach Unsupervised Full Self-Driving?
- When do you expect Unsupervised Full Self-Driving to reach customer cars?
- When will Robotaxi expand past its current limited rollout?
Additionally, these are currently the three questions that are slated to be answered by Institutional Firms, which also answer a handful of questions during the call:
- Now that FSD has been approved in the Netherlands and is expected to launch across Europe this summer, can you discuss your Robotaxi strategy for the region?
- What enabled you to finish the AI5 tapeout early and were there any changes to the original vision? Last week, Elon said AI5 will go into Optimus and the Supercomputer, but one month ago said it would go into the Robotaxi. Has AI5 been dropped from the vehicle roadmap?
- Given the recent NHTSA incident filings, can you update us on the Robotaxi safety data? If safety validation remains the primary bottleneck, why not deploy thousands of vehicles to accelerate the removal of the safety driver?
The questions range through every current Tesla project, including FSD expansion and Optimus. However, many of the answers we will get will likely be repetitive answers we’ve heard in the past.
This is especially pertinent when the questions about when Unsupervised FSD will reach customer cars: we know Musk will say that it will happen this year. Is Tesla capable of that? Maybe. But a more transparent answer that is more revealing of a true timeline would be appreciated.
Hardware 3 owners are anxiously awaiting the arrival of FSD v14 Lite, which was promised to them last year for a release sometime this year.
The Earnings Call is set to take place on Wednesday at market close.
Ford CEO Farley says Tesla is not who to look at for EV expertise
SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch
