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Elon Musk reveals ambitious SpaceX Starship plans for Mars missions
Elon Musk revealed more details about SpaceX’s ambitious plans to send Starship to Mars in the coming years, an expansion on previous goals the CEO spoke about just a few weeks ago.
Musk believes SpaceX will begin sending Starship to Mars in just two years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. These initial flights will be unmanned, Musk explained, and will first take off in 2026.
SpaceX will attempt to take humans to Mars for the first time in 2028. After the first launches, Musk believes the number of trips from Earth to Mars will “grow exponentially from there.”
The SpaceX and Tesla frontman first detailed these plans in Early September, but it is no secret that regulatory hurdles have been a newfound issue, delaying several Starship test flights that the company is ready to take.
Nevertheless, Musk still is in the process of coming up with a dedicated plan, and revealed more details in a post on X yesterday:
“SpaceX plans to launch about five uncrewed Starships to Mars in two years. If those all land safely, then crewed missions are possible in four years. If we encounter challenges, then the crewed missions will be postponed another two years.”
Musk also detailed the time restrictions that come from the Earth-Mars transfer window once again, which “increases the difficulty of the task, but also serves to immunize Mars from many catastrophic events on Earth.”
Musk is, without a doubt, priming the future Starship missions to be groundbreaking and setting the precedent that the timelines will push the limit and be very optimistic.
However, later in the post, he said there are concerns, and they relate to regulatory hurdles, like the ones SpaceX detailed in a lengthy blog post earlier this month.
We covered that topic here:
SpaceX explains Starship test flight delay, reveals new target date
SpaceX also wrote a letter to the FAA about the Starship test flight delays and fines that the agency recently hit the company with after the blog post:
SpaceX hits back at FAA in scathing new letter, claiming fines were retaliation
Musk continued in his X post yesterday, stating that regulatory issues and bureaucratic hurdles are one of his major worries:
“One of my biggest concerns right now is that the Starship program is being smothered by a mountain of government bureaucracy that grows every year. This stifling red tape is affecting all large projects in America, which is why, for example, California has spent ~$7 billion dollars and several years on high-speed rail, but only has a 1600 ft section of concrete to show for it! While I have many concerns about a potential Kamala regime, my absolute showstopper is that the bureaucracy currently choking America to death is guaranteed to grow under a Democratic Party administration. This would destroy the Mars program and doom humanity.”
Musk has already been very transparent about his support for former U.S. President Donald Trump, and it seems this recent post is yet another way he is using his platform to sway potential voters in a direction that would be advantageous to SpaceX.
SpaceX’s primary goal has been to colonize Mars and make life multiplanetary. Moving to get the Starship program rolling toward initial launches to Mars is a necessity. With this optimistic timeline, the company could make serious progress in the next ten years.
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Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
Tesla’s long-standing saga regarding its door handles and a manual release has entered its latest chapter, and as a result, a big change is coming.
On Friday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) denied Tesla’s petition that was seeking a defect investigation into roughly 180,000 Model 3 vehicles for an issue involving the emergency mechanical door release.
🚨 The NHTSA denied a petition from Tesla that would have thrown out concerns regarding its door handles.
NHTSA said Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect warranting an investigation. The agency said a rulemaking process would be a better strategy. pic.twitter.com/j6PzUBM1mT
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 24, 2026
NHTSA said that Tesla’s petition did not present evidence of a safety-related defect in the door handles or their emergency releases. Instead, the agency determined that it would rather solve the issue of the lack of labeling or location of emergency mechanical door releases and the federal safety rules that govern them.
Essentially, the NHTSA wants to create and enforce rules that would require automakers to make emergency door latch releases more clearly labeled in a car. Despite a Tesla having manual door releases on all four passenger doors, many people do not know they exist or how they work.
Tesla addresses door handle complaints with simple engineering fix
In recent times, Tesla has faced some criticism involving its door handles, specifically because some occupants have reported that they are unable to exit their vehicles after losing power. The door handles on a Tesla are electronically operated, but in the event that the 12V battery dies, there is a manual release that can be used.
The NHTSA only identified a single complaint involving the mechanical door releases: a 2022 Model 3 owner said the release was concealed and unlabeled after the vehicle lost power after a front-end collision. It has also already started to create a separate rulemaking process to make emergency door-egress systems more obvious.
It should be noted that all Teslas have mechanical emergency door releases, but they are placed in various locations as the vehicles have aged and been redesigned from year to year. Refer to the safety manual for your vehicle if you have any confusion about where the emergency releases are and how they work.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
Tesla short sellers win big after shares fall after earnings
