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Highlights from Tesla’s Gigafactory Media Event
Tesla kicked off its Gigafactory Tour on Tuesday, July 26 with a media event. We’re providing the best curated Tweets from today’s event followed by a live Tweet from the official Gigafactory Grand Opening party scheduled for this Fiday, July 29.
Follow us on Twitter and join us Live from the Tesla Gigafactory!
July 25: Tesla Gigafactory Media Event (Pacific Time):
- 12:00-12:30 PM: Arrival at the Gigafactory and intro
- 12:30- 2:30 PM: Exterior and Interior tours
- 3:00-4:00 PM: Remarks and Q&A with Elon Musk and JB Straubel
- 4:15/30 PM: Shuttle departs Gigafactory
We’ll provide an update in a follow up post with results from the Q&A
Elon Musk and JB Straubel take the stage for Q&A
Alongside Elon and JB is an executive from Panasonic.
Elon Musk just arrived to talk Gigafactory pic.twitter.com/URTSoMP6e2
— Marco della Cava (@marcodellacava) July 26, 2016
Q&A with Elon Musk & JB Straubel coming up
Tesla #gigafactory tour complete. Now awaiting Elon Musk and JB Straubel. Musk running a bit late we are told. pic.twitter.com/pl5Z6LcCA4
— Marco della Cava (@marcodellacava) July 26, 2016
Tesla Gigafactory robots in action
https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758058708895092736
https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758058583426682880
Top 6 tidbits about Tesla’s Gigafactory revealed through building permits
Tesla continues its expansion on the Gigafactory as seen at outer areas of the main plant where steel construction beams are being put into place.
Section B Prime of Tesla #gigafactory – only a few days into construction as pace here quickens pic.twitter.com/3E69qgVUGM
— Marco della Cava (@marcodellacava) July 26, 2016
Tesla describes their relationship with Panasonic
Media was chaperoned to a no-photography-allowed section within the plant that housed proprietary equipment from Panasonic.
https://twitter.com/ByBenSpillman/status/758048060077289472
https://twitter.com/ByBenSpillman/status/758061212345085952
Tesla is already assembling Powerwall units
Inside Tesla's #gigafactory – where Tesla Powerwall battery storage units are now being built. pic.twitter.com/PpAAdKSF9C
— Marco della Cava (@marcodellacava) July 26, 2016
Area within the Gigafactory where battery cells will be produced
https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758044716273315841
Water treatment facility located on the east side behind the main entrance to the Gigafactory
https://twitter.com/ByBenSpillman/status/758038584393732096
The Gigafactory looks small by comparison to its expansive surroundings
https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758036769904263168
Tesla’s Gigafactory occupies a relatively small footprint within the overall 3200 acres of land purchased
- Tesla Gigafactory, July 24, 2016
- A newly perched white tent is seen near the entrance to the Gigafactory
This is just 20% of total #Gigafactory. 1.9 million sq feet of planned 10M = 107 football fields pic.twitter.com/kp9uteZMrN
— Marco della Cava (@marcodellacava) July 26, 2016
Miniature models of the Gigafactory office space and production floor
https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758039972121186304
A model of the Gigafactory is seen in the lobby showing robots in action on the production floor.
A “you are here” label reveals that the current size of the Gigafactory is only 14% of what it will ultimately be.
Model of Tesla #gigafactory production floor pic.twitter.com/Y5sToPJZKy
— Marco della Cava (@marcodellacava) July 26, 2016
https://twitter.com/ByBenSpillman/status/758021392272986112
Entrance to the Gigafactory
Tesla CEO Elon Musk will address reporters here at #gigafactory later today. Stay with @usatodaytech pic.twitter.com/fT95tZOeEy
— Marco della Cava (@marcodellacava) July 26, 2016
Tesla giving test drives in a Model S P90D before taking groups to tour the interior of the Gigafactory
Killing time before exterior tour at Tesla #gigafactory with test "flights" of Model S pic.twitter.com/HFKRr8pu4t
— Marco della Cava (@marcodellacava) July 26, 2016
Greeted by a beautiful Tesla Model 3 at the entrance of the Gigafactory
https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758020744747941888
Media making a pitstop at the security gate on Electric Avenue before heading into the Gigafactory
https://twitter.com/danielsparks/status/758015650560249856
New aerial photos of the Gigafactory taken on Sunday, July 24 shows a security guard shack located on the main road leading into the property.
Elon Musk
The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”
The Boring Company has modified a Tesla powered tunnel truck to carry freight containers underground.
The Boring Company has found a second job for the Tesla hardware it already runs underground. In a post on X, Elon Musk’s tunneling company showed its latest Prufrock Liner Truck modified to carry a standard 20 foot shipping container. “Using TBC tunnels to transport freight,” the company wrote. “The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20′ shipping container. Fits like a glove!”
The photo shows a red container sitting on a long, low white chassis parked outside, with drive hardware visible at one end. The Boring Company did not say where or when freight hauling would start, which customers it has in mind, or how many trucks it is converting.
Using TBC tunnels to transport freight.
The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20’ shipping container.
Fits like a glove! https://t.co/VV0phWK4fc
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) October 19, 2026
Until now, the liner trucks have hauled concrete. Teslarati reported in August on Liner Truck 3, which uses Model 3 battery packs and drive units to move more than 22,000 pounds of precast tunnel segments to the boring machine. It has 28 miles of range, tops out at 12 mph, and is piloted remotely from the company’s operations center in Texas. The freight version appears to be the same platform with a different bed, and The Boring Company has not said whether it will also be remotely piloted.
Freight has been on the company’s menu for years. When TBC updated its product lineup in 2021, its freight tunnel was described as sized to fit a standard shipping container, “barely.” The company later used the idea at Tesla’s own factory, where Prufrock 3 dug a tunnel to Giga Texas that now moves finished Cybertrucks away from the production line.
The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D in September at a $23 billion valuation, and Teslarati has covered how that money is tied to a UAE tunneling push and a faster Nashville build. In Nashville, Prufrock MB1 and MB2 are mining at the same time, and a third machine is expected to launch in late October. Each machine needs a steady supply of liner trucks, so any design that works for segments and containers alike gives the company more use out of the same Tesla parts.
The Vegas Loop remains the only Boring Company system open to the public, and it moves passengers in Tesla vehicles. A freight service would be a separate product, and the post gave no indication that one is close to launch. For now, it is a truck, a container and a short caption saying they fit together.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”
SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.
It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.
Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.
Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened
Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.
The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.
The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel
The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.
Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.
A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.
The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.
Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.
Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.
There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.
The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.


