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How other industries see Tesla Motors

This what industry players are having a hard time seeing, how a startup focuses on vision instead of cash flow profit and the mundane.

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Elon Musk's Roadster

I caught my second glimpse of Elon’s Roadster at a car event where I saw the charging cord daisy chain here.

The latest wild swings in the Tesla news fueled by New Jersey’s infamous closing of its doors on allowing the company to sell directly, has had greater repercussions than anticipated. Our original $5B Gigafactory and how Tesla will disrupt more than carmakers article, written on March 4th on how disruptive its Gigafactory will be, has gained a lot of traction. Since then, the investment world seems to take Tesla Motors a little more seriously, even the articles on Seeking Alpha are becoming favorable to the company. We are happy to see the specialized press also acknowledging the potential Tesla is, not just as a cheerleader for electric cars, with GreenCarReports writing about how much more than a carmaker the company is. And yes, Panasonic is not the only battery maker wondering where this whole Gigafactory is going and what it means to their business model. I wrote a similar article on CarNewsCafe.

Tesla Motors is.. a lifestyle statement!

Tesla Motors really boils down to two fundamental trends. It is part of the answer many want to see, a different future than the one presented by most companies and what mainstream carmakers are satisfied with. It’s also about one entrepreneur’s vision of wanting a fun electric car to drive, Elon Musk. Doing only what an entrepreneur does best with a startup, it begins with a clean slate. It is extremely nimble and capable of tackling far greater changes than an established company. Tesla Motors has never been, will never be and can never be defined as a carmaker. It is much more than that with Superchargers, soon a battery factory, an indirect solar energy company, and much more. This is what traditional carmakers and investors were having a hard time understanding, the whole picture and how out of the box the Tesla business model is.

Tesla Awe

This is the day my gearhead friend finally saw the light with EVs

If we are blessed and cursed with ADD and always wanting more, this can be a great fuel for innovations, but it can also frighten companies focused on keeping a steady cash flow. Startups need to continuously innovate and at some point, they too become established companies, see Apple and Google, for example. Certain established companies rekindled their original drive and unique DNA, such as IBM going back to consulting, dropping manufacturing out of the equation. That is the only way for a startup to survive in the long run, leaving the rest to linger.

Tesla will continue to innovate, as long as it keeps focusing on what matters. What matters is what we all want, a change, a real change away from the mundane. Tesla answers this and will continue to disrupt more than carmakers, as we noted in our March 4th article.

Solar City and the challenges it faces

Solar City is one of the outlets where Tesla Motors can surprise us the next few years. The company made solar panels a household name, but it faces the entrepreneur’s dilemma, how to go forward and continue innovating.

Solar City is good at one thing, leasing photovoltaic (PV) panels with a promise to cut your electric bill by at least $25. Since then, it has done little more than that. Today, Solar City virtually sits on most rooftops, making it one of the biggest energy maker in the U.S. It will need to move beyond the leasing model, which really isn’t that economical for the long term. Solar City, through Elon Musk’s vision should be where the next Tesla Motors saga will reveal its next strategic move. The Gigafactory will use solar energy and should indirectly motivate Solar City to move beyond simply leasing. It could morph into an energy management company. This is what happened to Coulomb Technology as it spun off its manufacturing process to ChargePoint and got into the management aspects of the business, much like IBM. Solar City is the last company Elon Musk hasn’t reworked yet. It is fully poised to reap the benefits of its energy management before the government runs out of patience with it. With the Superchargers in place, this juggernaut has a complete portfolio for energy management.

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Nvidia’s board meets on Jensen Huang, and Elon Musk already has an answer

Elon Musk says it would be an honor to hire Jensen Huang amid Nvidia turmoil.

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Elon Musk says he would welcome Jensen Huang at one of his companies if Nvidia’s board decides to push out its longtime chief executive.

On Wednesday evening, the financial account ZeroHedge posted “Elon please hire Jensen” on X. Musk replied roughly two hours later: “That would be an honor.” Neither Huang nor Nvidia had responded publicly as of Wednesday night.

Musk’s reply came as Nvidia’s board met to decide Huang’s future. The Wall Street Journal reported that directors were preparing to oust him following reports of two extramarital relationships. One involves Alice Huang, a Singapore-based businesswoman whom U.S. intelligence officials reportedly believe was working for China’s Ministry of State Security. The New York Times separately reported a relationship with Kimberly Powell, Nvidia’s vice president of health care. Huang acknowledged being unfaithful in a memo to employees on Sunday but gave no details.


Under Nvidia’s bylaws, a majority of its 11 directors can remove the CEO with or without cause. Bloomberg reported that the board has been working with an outside firm on possible replacements and may name an interim chief, with CFO Colette Kress seen as the likely pick. Nvidia shares fell more than 8 percent in extended trading, according to CNBC, and the company is scheduled to report quarterly earnings on November 17.

Musk has more riding on Nvidia’s leadership than most tech executives. In August, he told investors on SpaceX’s first earnings call as a public company that it would build its AI infrastructure exclusively on Nvidia hardware, calling Vera Rubin “the best architecture.” SpaceX is also working with Nvidia on the compute payload for Starmind, its planned orbital AI constellation. In October, SpaceX said it had a binding commitment for a roughly $40 billion lease of Vera Rubin GPUs and related equipment, with the leases expected to begin in the first half of 2027.

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The scale of that dependence is already enormous. On its Q3 call, SpaceX said it was bringing roughly 200,000 to 220,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs online each month and expects 2.5 to 3 GW of nameplate compute by the end of the year. That buildout is now reaching new sites like the proposed $24 billion power plant and supercomputer campus at Starbase.

The relationship between the two executives also goes back nearly a decade. Huang has often told the story of personally delivering Nvidia’s first DGX-1 AI supercomputer to Musk in 2016, when no other customer wanted one. “Nobody wanted to be part of it, except for Elon,” Huang said on the Joe Rogan Experience last December.

Musk did not say what role Huang might fill, and his reply stops short of a formal offer. Huang co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and still owns about 3.6 percent of its stock, so any move to a Musk company would depend on whether, and how, he leaves the chipmaker he has run for more than three decades.

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Starlink Mini 2 arrives with one feature for true off-grid connectivity

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX officially launched the Starlink Mini 2 on November 10, delivering the first portable Starlink terminal designed around independent power.

Invitation-only preorders for select U.S. customers are priced at $999 plus tax, a figure that includes a full year of Roam Unlimited service valued at roughly $2,100. A refundable $100 deposit reserves the kit, with the balance due at shipment, expected to begin in mid-December. Broader availability is listed as coming soon.

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The headline feature is the quick-swap 71 Wh battery. Clipped to the rear of the dish without tools, it delivers up to 4.5 hours of connectivity on a single charge.

The 490-gram pack includes its own USB-C port and LED indicators, so users can charge a spare separately and swap it in seconds while staying online. Starlink notes that the terminal can continue operating while the battery charges or run directly from a 60 W USB-C source. The retail box includes one battery, a 60 W USB-C charger, and a 3-meter cable.

Beyond power, the Mini 2 is thinner at 23.1 mm (versus 38.5 mm on the original Mini) while measuring 263 × 314 mm. With the battery and kickstand attached it weighs 1.6 kg.

Built-in Wi-Fi 6 expands coverage to up to 1,800 square feet, an IP67 rating protects against dust and water, and a standard 1/4-20 tripod thread plus physical power button round out the design. Field of view remains 110 degrees, and the unit retains support for mobile use.

For travelers, campers, and remote workers, the swappable battery removes the longstanding requirement for an external power bank or vehicle outlet that defined the first Mini. Spare packs sold separately further extend runtime, turning the compact terminal into a more self-contained solution.

While the bundled $999 invitation price sits well above the original Mini’s current $149 starting point, the included year of service and genuine untethered operation mark a clear step forward in portable satellite internet.

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SpaceX’s $24B Starbase supercomputer plan slipped past a key roadblock

SpaceX wants a Starbase tax break for a $24 billion gas plant and supercomputer campus.

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Concept rendering of SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell overlooks the company’s Hawthorne, California headquarters as an American flag flies over the campus at sunset.

SpaceX is asking its own company town for a tax break on a $24 billion natural gas power plant and supercomputing facility at Starbase, Texas, and the land it picked sits just outside the reach of a data center moratorium that took effect in neighboring Brownsville last week.

A City of Starbase public hearing notice says SpaceX “proposes to construct, own, and operate a gas-fired power plant and super-compute facility” on roughly 444 acres between Boca Chica Boulevard and the Port of Brownsville. The $24 billion figure covers only the initial phases, and the notice leaves room for future expansions. The Starbase City Commission will consider a property tax abatement and a related economic development agreement at a 7 p.m. hearing on December 9. The notice does not disclose the size or length of the abatement, or how much computing capacity the site would hold.

The location has a history. Over the summer, SpaceX asked Brownsville to remove the tract from its city limits and offered $220 million for water and wastewater projects in return. Brownsville approved the move in August, and Starbase later annexed the land. Brownsville’s own 90-day pause on data center applications took effect last week, and had the tract stayed inside the city, the project likely would have needed a different home.

The power side is already in front of state regulators. SpaceX has applied to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for air permits covering 35 mobile gas turbines producing roughly 750 megawatts, according to Politico, which also noted that two of the three Starbase commissioners voting on the incentives are SpaceX executives.

Building its own plant lets SpaceX skip the Texas grid. Gov. Greg Abbott paused new data center grid connections in August pending an audit, but a facility that generates its own electricity does not need one. The air permit still has to clear the TCEQ, where Abbott also ordered a halt on data center permits.

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The bigger test arrives in January. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, who unseated Abbott last week, has said she will block data center approvals until the legislature passes new protections, and she has already asked state officials to hold off on any sale of Boca Chica State Park to SpaceX until she is sworn in. Tesla and SpaceX shares both fell the day after the election, and Musk’s first reaction on X was “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now.”

That line points to Starmind, SpaceX’s orbital compute constellation. Musk has said terrestrial compute will be “peanuts compared to orbital compute” and expects monthly orbital deployments to pass ground deployments around the end of 2028, as Teslarati reported. Until then, SpaceX still needs gigawatts on the ground. It ended the third quarter with 1.7 GW of nameplate compute, is targeting 2.5 to 3 GW by the end of this year and wants at least 10 GW more in 2027. Its existing Colossus sites around Memphis already run on gas turbines and face a lawsuit from residents over emissions.

Local reaction is split. The South Texas Environmental Justice Network has announced a protest, citing air quality, water use and energy bills, while some Brownsville residents told the Tribune they welcome the jobs. SpaceX did not respond to the Tribune’s questions about the project.

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