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Elon Musk says Tesla Cybertruck launch will be ‘biggest on Earth this year’

Credit: Joe Tegtmeyer | X

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Tesla CEO Elon Musk has predicted that the Tesla Cybertruck launch will be bigger than any other product launch in the world this year, ahead of the delivery event set to take place on Thursday.

Musk appeared for an almost-90-minute interview with reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin for the New York Times 2023 Dealbook Summit on Wednesday, during which the two talked about subjects ranging from Tesla and SpaceX to artificial intelligence (AI), the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, free speech and more.

During the conversation, Musk predicted that the Thursday Cybertruck launch would be “by far” this year’s largest product launch, adding that he’s done “more than any human on Earth” for the environment by selling electric vehicles (EVs).

“[The Cybertruck event] will be the biggest product launch of anything by far on Earth this year,” Musk said during the summit. “Whether you hate me, like me or are indifferent, do you want the best car or not the best car?”

Tesla Cybertruck official webpage updated with delivery event countdown

Musk and Sorkin also discussed several other topics surrounding Tesla, including the company’s Full Self-Driving (FSD) beta. When pressed on how his companies were handling the competition, Musk noted that his companies aren’t intended to be competitive, highlighting how Tesla has even open-sourced its patents so other companies can use them.

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Near the end of the conversation, Sorkin also asked Musk about the safety of autonomous vehicles, and when computer-driven vehicles would be “politically palatable” for the public.

“First of all, humans are terrible drivers,” Musk said. “So they will text and drive, drink and drive, they get into arguments. They, you know. They do all sorts of things in cars that they should not do.”

“So it’s actually remarkable that there are not more deaths than there are,” Musk added.

“What we’ll find with computer driving is, I think, probably an order of magnitude reduction in deaths. The U.S. has actually far fewer deaths per capita than the rest of the world. If you go worldwide, I think there’s something close to a million deaths per year due to automotive accidents. So I think computer driving will probably drop that by 90 percent or more? It won’t be perfect, but it’ll be 10 times better.”

“The self driving thing is something I’ve been optimistic about,” Musk added. “We’ve certainly made a lot of progress. If anybody has tried the has been using the sort of full self driving beta, the progresses you know, every year has been substantial. It’s really not the point where in most places, it’ll take you from one place to another with no interventions.”

“And the data is unequivocal that that supervised, Full Self-Driving is somewhere around four times safer. Maybe more than than just be human driving by by themselves. So I can certainly see it coming.”

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Other topics surrounding Tesla included Musk’s prediction that the Model Y will become the world’s best-selling car this year, how much the CEO appreciates Chinese automakers, regulations on his companies and more. When asked if he thought full autonomy was another five or ten years away, Musk said “definitely not.”

Musk also disccused the recent decision from the UAW to launch union campaigns at Tesla and other automakers, saying that “if Tesla gets unionized, it will be because we deserve it and we failed in some way.”

You can watch Musk’s full interview at the New York Times Dealbook Summit below, featuring discussions on Tesla, the Chinese auto market, the U.S. political climate and much, much more.

What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send your tips to us at tips@teslarati.com.

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Zach is a renewable energy reporter who has been covering electric vehicles since 2020. He grew up in Fremont, California, and he currently lives in Colorado. His work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, KRON4 San Francisco, FOX31 Denver, InsideEVs, CleanTechnica, and many other publications. When he isn't covering Tesla or other EV companies, you can find him writing and performing music, drinking a good cup of coffee, or hanging out with his cats, Banks and Freddie. Reach out at zach@teslarati.com, find him on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send us tips at tips@teslarati.com.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk gives his most telling Tesla-SpaceX merger conversation yet

Elon Musk hinted a Tesla-SpaceX merger could be coming, and Wall Street is taking notice.

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Elon Musk gave his clearest signal yet that Tesla and SpaceX could eventually combine, telling the All-In Summit in Los Angeles that the two companies’ deepening collaboration makes the question worth asking. Sawyer Merritt first surfaced the highlight on X Tuesday.

Asked directly why Tesla and SpaceX remain separate given how closely they already work together, Musk told hosts at the summit: “Great question there. With all this collaboration, on so many levels, who can imagine what action one might take when there’s so much close collaboration in so many areas.” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, who joined Musk on stage, added that SpaceX personnel have already moved into xAI to fill leadership and engineering gaps, saying the businesses are integrating “faster than I thought,” though “not fully integrated yet,”

The comments landed on top of merger speculation that has been building on Wall Street for months. JPMorgan has called a tie-up “strategically coherent on paper,” pointing to overlapping ambitions in AI, robotics, energy, transportation and space. Jefferies went further, estimating Musk could retain roughly 55.3 percent voting control in a deal structured without a premium, a scenario that would still leave room for Tesla shareholders to come out ahead. On Kalshi, traders now put the odds of a merger before 2028 at 66 percent.

Tesla’s stake in SpaceX, still under one percent, traces back to its earlier investment in xAI, which converted to SpaceX equity after SpaceX absorbed the AI company. The two are also jointly building Terafab, a chip facility in Austin meant to serve both Tesla’s AI computing needs and SpaceX’s satellite ambitions. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has stood by a 2027 merger timeline for months, and Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest recently floated a similar case, an idea Musk pushed back on directly at the time.

Another Tesla SpaceX merger prediction by ARK Invest has Elon Musk talking

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The timing adds another layer. Tesla has scheduled an October 1 unveiling for its next generation Roadster at a venue near SpaceX’s McGregor, Texas test site, using the phrase “Go for launch” in its promotional material. Both stocks dipped roughly 2 percent Monday before recovering slightly in premarket trading Tuesday, with SpaceX shares up about 0.4 percent and Tesla essentially flat.

Musk stopped short of confirming anything is in motion. But unlike his past denials of a corporate restructuring, this response didn’t rule one out, and it came with Shotwell sitting next to him describing an integration that’s already underway.

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Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by Elon Musk

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tesla roadster
Credit: Petersen Auto Museum

The Tesla Roadster unveiling is getting hyped up by the company’s CEO Elon Musk, who has been a big reason the product has such high expectations due to delayed timelines and a constant need to make it even more insane than before.

Tesla announced on September 12 that it would officially unveil the Roadster in Waco, Texas, on October 1, ending years of patience for fans and reservation holders who have waited for the all-electric supercar to enter production since 2017.

Musk has said that this event will be well worth the wait on several occasions, and last year on the Joe Rogan Experience, he said that there should be a closing chapter to supercars- the end of cars that aren’t focused on safety.

He said:

“Whether it’s good or bad, it will be unforgettable. My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars. I think if Peter wants a flying car, he should be able to buy one. I think it has a shot at being the most memorable product unveil ever. This is some crazy technology in this car. Let’s just put it this way: if you took all the James Bond cars and combined them, it’s crazier than that.”

Musk’s teases have continued, and now that the event is roughly two weeks away, it seems like Roadster is finally going to show up and blow some minds:

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Tesla has definitely dragged out the development of the Roadster, but there is a good reason for it.

Tesla has been working on many other projects, most notably self-driving efforts to increase passenger safety, and those simply took priority over the Roadster, a low-volume, high-performance sports car that has a lightning-fast acceleration rate of 0-60 MPH in just 1.1 seconds, could potentially fly, and contributes very little to the company’s mission.

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However, many people have the Roadster on pre-order through the referral program or with their own money, and it is time that Tesla delivers on that.

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Elon Musk’s Boring Company has big plans for Las Vegas by year’s end

Elon Musk’s Boring Company says Vegas Loop stations will double by year end once again.

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the boring company's vegas loop entrance

The Boring Company says the Vegas Loop’s station count will double by the end of the year, tying the target to a hiring push for drivers and operations managers in Las Vegas. “Vegas Loop is getting bigger – the station count will double by end of year!” the company wrote in a post on X, attaching listings for a Loop driver and a senior Loop operations manager.

The number checks out against what’s already public, with the Vegas Loop currently running 14 operational stations, while the Boring Company’s own project page lists 28 as the target for the end of 2026.

Much of that growth is tied to tunnels that are already built and waiting on an opening date. A roughly two-mile dual tunnel system under Paradise Road, connecting Westgate to a planned station at 4744 Paradise Road, is expected to open in stages over the coming weeks, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority chief executive Steve Hill told the Review-Journal last week. New stations at 4744 Paradise, Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, and the former Gordon Biersch site would come online with it, several of them built to speed up rides to Harry Reid International Airport ahead of Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix.

Clark County entitled Vegas Loop for 123 stations after approving 19 more in August, as Teslarati reported at the time. Entitlement and construction move at different speeds on this project, so county approval alone does not guarantee a station opens on any particular schedule.

Clark County approved 18 additional stations back in 2023, part of a plan that pushed the system’s target to 69 stations across 65 miles, doubling the network on paper for the first time. The target kept climbing after that, to roughly 93 stations by the end of that year and 104 by last year, before August’s vote pushed it to 123. This week’s announcement is the first time that doubling language has been attached to stations actually running rather than stations merely approved on a county map.

Ridership gives some sense of what a denser network could carry. Boring Company executive Mike Baier said in July that the Vegas Loop already moves around 40,000 passengers on busy convention days, a total that tops most light rail systems in the country despite the system running on a fraction of its planned tunnel mileage. Company leadership has projected ridership could triple or quadruple once the airport connector tunnels fully open.

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Boring Company did not say which stations beyond those already under construction would open by year end, or whether the hiring push points to a fleet expansion alongside the new stops.

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