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Ford and Google Form Partnership to Build Self-Driving Cars

Ford and Google will announce a new partnership to build self driving cars at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The agreement is non-exclusive.

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Google has been out on the streets testing its fleet of self driving cars around Mountain View for the past two years, making everyone wonder what the search-engine giant has in store for the future. Is it going to build its own cars? If it does, will those cars compete with Tesla? When will the company make its intentions known?

According to sources close to both companies, Google and Ford will announce a partnership at the upcoming 2016 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this January. Ford will create a new entity shielding its parent company from any corporate liability when it assists Google with building a self driving car. Even though Volvo, Mercedes and even Google have said publicly they will accept liability for any injuries arising from the operation of their autonomous cars, Ford apparently feels at this early stage in the history of self driving software it is best to wear both a belt and suspenders — just in case.

Several former Ford employees are now working at Google, including John Krafcik, who heads Google’s autonomous car program. He worked at Ford for 14 years before moving to Google. Former Ford CEO Alan Mulally joined Google’s board last year.

According to Yahoo! Autos, the arrangement between Ford and Google is non-exclusive. Both are free to seek other partners if they see fit. In Google’s case, that may be wise, considering how Toyota was left feeling jilted after it cooperated with Ford for several years on hybrid powertrains for pickup trucks.

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For its part, Google told Bloomberg News recently that its self driving auto unit will become a separate entity under its new Alphabet umbrella. It appears it may still decide to build a version of its two passenger bubble car to compete with Uber in the market for an on-demand car service managed by smartphone apps. If so, that’s where the clash with Tesla may come. Elon Musk has been noticeably evasive when asked about such plans, leading many to believe that’s exactly what Tesla has in mind.

Faraday Future is building a factory in North Las Vegas. NextEV is getting organized in China. Atieva is flexing its muscles in San Francisco. Uber is hard at work designing its own autonomous cars. Everyone is expecting one or more of them to give Tesla a battle in the marketplace. And what about Apple? If those aren’t great indications that autonomous driving will be the future, we’re not sure what is.

 

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Starlink goes mainstream with first-ever SpaceX Super Bowl advertisement

SpaceX used the Super Bowl broadcast to promote Starlink, pitching the service as fast, affordable broadband available across much of the world.

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Credit: Starlink/X

SpaceX aired its first-ever Super Bowl commercial on Sunday, marking a rare move into mass-market advertising as it seeks to broaden adoption of its Starlink satellite internet service.

Starlink Super Bowl advertisement

SpaceX used the Super Bowl broadcast to promote Starlink, pitching the service as fast, affordable broadband available across much of the world.

The advertisement highlighted Starlink’s global coverage and emphasized simplified customer onboarding, stating that users can sign up for service in minutes through the company’s website or by phone in the United States.

The campaign comes as SpaceX accelerates Starlink’s commercial expansion. The satellite internet service grew its global user base in 2025 to over 9 million subscribers and entered several dozen additional markets, as per company statements.

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Starlink growth and momentum

Starlink has seen notable success in numerous regions across the globe. Brazil, in particular, has become one of Starlink’s largest growth regions, recently surpassing one million users, as per Ookla data. The company has also expanded beyond residential broadband into aviation connectivity and its emerging direct-to-cellular service.

Starlink has recently offered aggressive promotions in select regions, including discounted or free hardware, waived installation fees, and reduced monthly pricing. Some regions even include free Starlink Mini for select subscribers. In parallel, SpaceX has introduced AI-driven tools to streamline customer sign-ups and service selection.

The Super Bowl appearance hints at a notable shift for Starlink, which previously relied largely on organic growth and enterprise contracts. The ad suggests SpaceX is positioning Starlink as a mainstream alternative to traditional broadband providers.

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Tesla engineers deflected calls from this tech giant’s now-defunct EV project

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Tesla engineers deflected calls from Apple on a daily basis while the tech giant was developing its now-defunct electric vehicle program, which was known as “Project Titan.”

Back in 2022 and 2023, Apple was developing an EV in a top-secret internal fashion, hoping to launch it by 2028 with a fully autonomous driving suite.

However, Apple bailed on the project in early 2024, as Project Titan abandoned the project in an email to over 2,000 employees. The company had backtracked its expectations for the vehicle on several occasions, initially hoping to launch it with no human driving controls and only with an autonomous driving suite.

Apple canceling its EV has drawn a wide array of reactions across tech

It then planned for a 2028 launch with “limited autonomous driving.” But it seemed to be a bit of a concession at that point; Apple was not prepared to take on industry giants like Tesla.

Wedbush’s Dan Ives noted in a communication to investors that, “The writing was on the wall for Apple with a much different EV landscape forming that would have made this an uphill battle. Most of these Project Titan engineers are now all focused on AI at Apple, which is the right move.”

Apple did all it could to develop a competitive EV that would attract car buyers, including attempting to poach top talent from Tesla.

In a new podcast interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it was revealed that Apple had been calling Tesla engineers nonstop during its development of the now-defunct project. Musk said the engineers “just unplugged their phones.”

Musk said in full:

“They were carpet bombing Tesla with recruiting calls. Engineers just unplugged their phones. Their opening offer without any interview would be double the compensation at Tesla.”

Interestingly, Apple had acquired some ex-Tesla employees for its project, like Senior Director of Engineering Dr. Michael Schwekutsch, who eventually left for Archer Aviation.

Tesla took no legal action against Apple for attempting to poach its employees, as it has with other companies. It came after EV rival Rivian in mid-2020, after stating an “alarming pattern” of poaching employees was noticed.

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Tesla to a $100T market cap? Elon Musk’s response may shock you

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There are a lot of Tesla bulls out there who have astronomical expectations for the company, especially as its arm of reach has gone well past automotive and energy and entered artificial intelligence and robotics.

However, some of the most bullish Tesla investors believe the company could become worth $100 trillion, and CEO Elon Musk does not believe that number is completely out of the question, even if it sounds almost ridiculous.

To put that number into perspective, the top ten most valuable companies in the world — NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, and Tesla — are worth roughly $26 trillion.

Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI

Cathie Wood of ARK Invest believes the number is reasonable considering Tesla’s long-reaching industry ambitions:

“…in the world of AI, what do you have to have to win? You have to have proprietary data, and think about all the proprietary data he has, different kinds of proprietary data. Tesla, the language of the road; Neuralink, multiomics data; nobody else has that data. X, nobody else has that data either. I could see $100 trillion. I think it’s going to happen because of convergence. I think Tesla is the leading candidate [for $100 trillion] for the reason I just said.”

Musk said late last year that all of his companies seem to be “heading toward convergence,” and it’s started to come to fruition. Tesla invested in xAI, as revealed in its Q4 Earnings Shareholder Deck, and SpaceX recently acquired xAI, marking the first step in the potential for a massive umbrella of companies under Musk’s watch.

SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise

Now that it is happening, it seems Musk is even more enthusiastic about a massive valuation that would swell to nearly four-times the value of the top ten most valuable companies in the world currently, as he said on X, the idea of a $100 trillion valuation is “not impossible.”

Tesla is not just a car company. With its many projects, including the launch of Robotaxi, the progress of the Optimus robot, and its AI ambitions, it has the potential to continue gaining value at an accelerating rate.

Musk’s comments show his confidence in Tesla’s numerous projects, especially as some begin to mature and some head toward their initial stages.

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