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Musk calls out SpaceX rival for receiving billion dollar subsidy, ULA head fires back

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9 years ago

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Following an intriguing SpaceX testimony before Senate committees in Washington D.C., Musk took to Twitter to share some thoughts on the state of the launch marketplace and SpaceX’s place within it. It didn’t take long for him to relate a somewhat common critique of the United Launch Alliance, SpaceX’s only American competition.

Tory Bruno, President and Chief Executive of ULA, responded with gloves off just a few hours later, deeming the implied existence of such a subsidy nothing more than a “[persistent] myth”. He spent fifteen or so minutes replying to skeptical and inquisitive followers on Twitter, stating that the Wikipedia paragraph on the subject was incorrect. Bruno was steadfast in his response saying that he had publicly testified on the public procurement process before Congress (he did, and he did not defer on the term “subsidy”), and he adamantly refused to back down on his statement that such a subsidy only existed in mythology.

For better or for worse, Bruno is correct to a large extent. In fact, he published a full editorial on the controversial subject in the canonical SpaceNews Magazine. The ELC (EELV (Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle) Launch Contract) is the source of this controversy, and while not quite a full billion dollars, the FY2016 ELC contract was for $860 million.

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SpaceX has admittedly been chronically doubted and mistreated in the realm of government contracting, and ULA has been less than perfectly civil in the past. Simply by existing, SpaceX in effect disrupted what was a American launch industry monopoly held between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Those two companies merged their space endeavors approximately 11 years ago and have since been the United Launch Alliance. For reasons that do make a bit of sense but are still mildly obtuse, the United States Air Force chose to purchase ULA launch vehicles and the services that make the launch of those vehicles possible separately. The main given reason for this choice, as explored in Bruno’s editorial, is to give the Air Force added flexibility.

As discussed in the 2016 ELC contract itself, another large need for this type of funding lies in the maintenance of a large workforce, and the constant depreciation of both the Atlas and Delta families of launch vehicles. The Delta family, known mainly for the large Delta IV Heavy, is almost never utilized at this point in time, with Atlas being both more cost effective and more reliable. Regardless, due to contracting, ULA is required to maintain both the workforce and facilities necessary to produce and launch Delta vehicles, in spite of having nearly no “business” thanks to Atlas V. Maintaining a workforce and set of facilities that is in part or whole redundant is not efficient or cost-effective, but it is contractually required. So, while the ELC contract Musk deemed a nearly pointless subsidy does have some major flaws, inefficiencies, and illogical aspects, it is not technically correct to label it a subsidy.

 

Without the actual contract information, it is also difficult to know if ULA would still receive this contractual payment in lieu of conducting actual launches. Bruno frames it in such a way that it sounds like the U.S. government modifies the payment size based on the number and type of required launches for a given year. If the multi-year agreement means that launches delayed many months or more can still be swapped out at no additional charge, then this does indeed make a certain amount of sense. The array of discussion on the subject nevertheless fails to explore the consequences of launch provider-side issues, the likes of which ULA and Atlas 5 experienced earlier this year, resulting in some amount of delays.

While there can be no doubt that the actual gritty details of the ELC contracts deal explicitly with such possible outcomes, the lack of transparency (be that as a result of publicly inaccessible contract details or highly obtuse and lingo-heavy contract language) ultimately frames ELC contracts and the vehemence with which ULA defends them as a wasteful, overly complex, and unnecessary alternative to simply offering a fixed product with services inherently included, as SpaceX does.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Elon Musk

Tesla FSD takes owner on a 20,000+ mile joy ride

Tesla owner David Moss just pushed his intervention free FSD streak past 20,000 miles total.

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1 hour ago

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July 26, 2026

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Tesla FSD 14.3 [Credit: TESLARATI)

Tesla Model 3 owner David Moss has spent the better part of eight months turning his vehicle into a rolling stress test for Full Self-Driving, and this week he pushed his single, continuous FSD streak past 20,000 miles without a human intervening.

Moss, a Tacoma, Washington resident who sells LiDAR scanning equipment for a living, first drew wide attention in December 2025 when he logged 10,000 consecutive miles on FSD v14.2. Days later he drove from the Tesla Diner in Los Angeles to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, covering 2,732 miles in two days and 20 hours with zero disengagements, the first verified coast to coast autonomous drive in Tesla’s history. Tesla even featured the trip as an official customer story in March. That original streak eventually reached 12,961 miles across 30 states before ending in rural Wisconsin in January, when snow and single digit temperatures forced Moss to take over.

Tesla FSD successfully completes full coast-to-coast drive with zero interventions

He started over, and this run has gone further. In late May, Moss drove 3,760 miles across Canada with two companions, from Horseshoe Bay in Vancouver to a Tesla showroom in Halifax, again without a single intervention, a trip Tesla AI software VP Ashok Elluswamy publicly congratulated him for on X. In June, he pushed the same unbroken streak south, aiming to link the Canadian border to the Mexican border, and crossed 10,000 miles on Tesla’s newly added in car streak counter along the way, the first driver to do so since Tesla began showing confetti animations for the feature.


It’s worth noting that every mile is logged through the FSD Database, a community run tracker built by Tesla influencer Omar Qazi, well known as @WholeMars on X, that pulls telemetry straight from the car and records disengagements down to a tenth of a mile. That verification is what separates Moss’s numbers from casual claims on social media.

The streak itself is a fairly recent addition to Tesla’s software. FSD v14.2 introduced a Self Driving Stats panel tracking the ratio of autonomous to manual miles, and v14.3.4 added the live streak counter in June, which resets the moment a driver brakes, wrenches the wheel or cancels navigation. Reaching 20,000 miles on that counter means a single Tesla drove itself through countless highways, city grids, construction zones and Supercharger stalls without a single reset.

Moss has said the goal was never to set a record for its own sake, but to show, mile by verified mile, what the software can already do.

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Elon Musk explains what happens when AI outsmarts all of us

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13 hours ago

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July 26, 2026

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Elon Musk told The Economist that artificial intelligence will likely surpass the combined intelligence of every human on Earth within about five years, and that humans may not remain in charge once that happens. In a wide-ranging interview with editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes, recorded at Giga Texas for the outlet’s Insider series, Musk compared the widening gap between AI and human intelligence to the gap between humans and chimpanzees.

“It’s hard to imagine that the chimpanzee would be in charge,” he said, addressing what happens to human authority once AI moves far beyond us.

Elon Musk reiterates his most optimistic prediction yet with “UHI” forecast

Musk’s timeline stretches out from there. Five years for AI to out-think humanity combined, ten years before humans lose meaningful control, and by 2036, he says, money itself may stop mattering.

Musk notes that if robots and AI produce more goods and services than people could ever consume, currency loses its purpose. He told Beddoes that governments could respond with direct payments, what he called “universal high income,” a term he first used in an X post last August describing a future where “everyone will have the best medical care, food, home, transport and everything else.”

He also floated a more surprising prediction that deflation, and not inflation, would become the bigger economic problem, since expanding the supply of goods and services faster than the money supply grows would push prices down rather than up.

None of this is new territory for Musk, who has spent years describing an “age of abundance” built on Optimus and autonomous vehicles. What’s notable is the timing. The interview landed the same week Tesla shares dropped roughly 19 percent following a second quarter earnings report that beat on revenue but missed badly on profit, and as SpaceX stock continues to slide from its post-IPO peak.

Musk’s own net worth has fallen close to $700 billion since mid-June, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, even as he describes a future where personal wealth stops being the point.
Musk did not dodge the risk side of the equation either. He put the odds of AI contributing to human extinction somewhere in the 10 to 20 percent range, then arrived at what he called his “philosophical conclusion” since the technology cannot realistically be stopped and the arguably better response is to keep building it and hope the outcome leans toward abundance rather than catastrophe. “I’ve gone from exhilaration to terror regarding AI,” he told Beddoes, “even intraday.”

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Tesla adds new ‘Traction Control Modes’ for better handling in any conditions

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13 hours ago

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July 26, 2026

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla is adding a new “Traction Control Modes” feature to its cars for better handling in any conditions. These features will roll out to the Model 3 and Model Y, the two vehicles in Tesla’s lineup that typically do not have drive modes for various conditions.

Tesla did include this in the Model S and Model X, as well as the Cybertruck.

The new feature will roll out with the 2026 Summer Update, which Tesla announced last week and subsequently started rolling out to some owners today. The Summer Update is the latest iteration of the usual four seasonal releases the company rolls out throughout the year. These releases typically feature some owner-requested features, as well as improvements to things like the Full Self-Driving suite.

Tesla reveals 2026 Summer Update with crazy fixes to Nav and more

This release is no different. Among the changes are improvements to Navigation, new customization options with wraps and how they can be shared and stored, more functionality with the Tesla smartphone app, and new gamification with self-driving.

However, Tesla announced today that it was adding another feature to the Summer Update. Traction Control Modes will now be available with the release

Tesla describes them:

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“Choose from three updated Traction Control Modes: Auto for normal driving conditions, Slippery Surface for icy or wet roads, Stuck Assist when stuck in snow, mud, or sand. The mode resets to Auto at the start of each drive. To select, go to Controls > Dynamics > Traction Control Mode.”

The use of these modes will help improve a Tesla’s overall performance in less-than-ideal conditions. Typically, these traction control modes monitor wheel speed through sensors and track engine power to adjust responsiveness in various conditions.

These drive modes are not an ultimate solution to all driving conditions; just because there is a “Stuck Assist,” doesn’t mean your Tesla will dig itself out of a foot-and-a-half trench during a blizzard. It is important to remember that some of these scenarios also require some assistance from the driver. For example, driving in sand requires tires to be aired down significantly to increase traction and control.

However, this will be a welcome addition for those who use the Full Self-Driving suite and might not be convinced of its performance in adverse conditions. Some of us prefer to be in control in rain, snow, or ice, which is totally understandable. However, adjusting the Traction Control Mode while utilizing FSD in snow, rain, or ice could increase confidence and overall experience.

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Tesla’s Summer Update is already rolling out to some owners, so it should be making its way to most of the fleet over the next several weeks. The Spring Update rolled out at a very conservative pace, so if you don’t have it by the end of August, don’t be too upset. It might just be Tesla’s method.

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