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Elon Musk’s OpenAI bots crush veteran DOTA 2 players ahead of International tournament

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OpenAI’s team of AI-powered Dota 2 bots have reached yet another impressive milestone — it was able to beat the five veteran players in a 3-on-3 match, dominating two rounds before being defeated narrowly in the third match. The OpenAI Five are now headed to The International, a worldwide event later this month where the world’s best Dota 2 players will battle it out for the chance to be crowned 2018’s Dota 2 champions.

The OpenAI Five clashed with popular Dota 2 personalities such as Ben “Merlini” Wu, William “Blitz” Lee, Ioannis “Fogged” Lucas, David “MoonMeander” Tan, and Austin “Capitalist” Walsh. The bots completely overpowered Team Human in the first game, with the players unable to destroy any of the of the bots’ towers before the end of the match. The Dota 2 pros fought harder in the second round and managed to destroy one of the OpenAI Five’s towers, but they ultimately had to admit defeat to the bots.

Team Human did squeeze out a win in the third match, but not without some strings attached. The characters Open AI played were selected by Twitch users, giving Team Human a slight advantage. The team of bots calculated a 2.9% chance of winning before the start of the game based on its heroes’ lineup. The bots nevertheless fought a hard battle, at one point predicting a 17% win probability before succumbing to Team Human’s assault 35:47 into the game.

OpenAI’s initiatives with Dota 2 began in March last year. The first bot the nonprofit created started training with simple tasks and self-play. On August 7, 2017, the bot started an impressive winning streak after it defeated Blitz, a well-known player in the Dota 2 community. Later, the bot managed to win against two other high-ranking players. It continued with its winning streak defeating well-respected Dota 2 player Arteezy the day after. The Open AI bot went on to best other notable players including, SumaiL, and former world champion, Dendi.

This year’s team of bots involved a serious amount of hardware and training. The nonprofit research lab employed a scaled-up version of Proximal Policy Optimization running on 256 GPUs and 128,000 cores, a similar setup used in last year’s bot which dominated in 1-vs-1 Dota 2 matches. The OpenAI Five also played roughly 180 years worth of gameplay every day through reinforcement learning, which allowed the bots to develop advanced skills for the game.

OpenAI Five’s latest win against its most formidable adversaries yet ultimately demonstrates the immense progress the bots have made over the past few months. The bots were losing to amateur players in May, but by June, it had matured enough to beat casual gamers. Now, the bots have shown that they are good enough to defeat gamers that have been playing Dota 2 for years. Nevertheless, it is still up for question if OpenAI Five can beat the best players in the game at The International later this month.

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Watch OpenAI Five dominate Team Human in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7_mnrxFmo0

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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SpaceX reports its second earnings today: here’s what to expect

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Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX) will report its second public earnings call today since its IPO earlier this year, and there are a few things we expect to hear about, as well as Wall Street analysts, who have already outlined their expectations for the call.

Wall Street analysts have a consensus of $12.72 billion in revenue and an earnings per share (EPS) of $0.13. These are broken down into three sectors: Space, Connectivity, and AI/SI, which are perceived in this way:

  • Space: $1.41 billion
  • Connectivity: $4.84 billion
  • AI/SI: $6.47 billion

Other outlets cluster near $12.8 or $12.9 billion in revenue and $0.14 – $0.15 EPS. This implies a roughly 65 percent sequential growth from Q2’s $7.81 billion, driven mostly by AI/SI, with the first post-IPO positive EPS expected.

SpaceX just launched its secret Starfall saucer again

Here are the three things to watch for on the call:

AI Revenue Ramp and the $100B+ ARR target

AI is truly the swing factor for SpaceX, and analysts expect it to roughly double from Q2’s $2.56 billion and become about half of total revenue. Management previously guided to a $100 billion+ annualized run rate by December, including the Cursor acquisition, which was $60 billion, to close the quarter.

SpaceX makes first acquisition post-IPO

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Listen for updates on SpaceX’s compute capacity, especially pertaining to its contracts with Google, Anthropic, and others, revenue per watt, any new deals, and Cursor’s early contribution.

Starlink/Connectivity Metrics and Mobile Expansion

Connectivity remains a main profit engine for SpaceX. Subscriber additions will be something to pay attention to, as Q2 ended at 12 million and previews are looking at 14 million for this quarter. Additionally, ARPU trends, enterprise and government growth, and any commentary on Starlink Mobile will be something to pay attention to, especially following the recent low-band spectrum deal and FCC-related constellation approvals.

Capex Trajectory, Cash Burn/FCF, and Starship/Operational Updates

Q2 capex of roughly $18.4 billion weighed on the stock. Investors will look to scrutinize Q3 spending levels, any guidance on the pace into Q4/2027, free cash flow, backlog, and liquidity. Operational color on Starship (Flight 14 milestones and Flight 15 timing/reusability progress), Falcon cadence, and government/NASA contracts are also in focus.

Of course, there will also be some speculation on the potential Tesla-SpaceX merger, but there was nothing mentioned in the company’s proxy it sent earlier this week.

SpaceX will report earnings after market close today and will stream the call on X.

Interested in ordering a Tesla? Use my referral code for three free months of Full Self-Driving (Supervised) here

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SpaceX just launched its secret Starfall saucer again

SpaceX launched its Starfall capsule again on Bandwagon-5, this time listed openly beside rideshare customers.

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An artist’s illustration of a SpaceX Starfall capsule reentering Earth’s atmosphere. (Image: SpaceX)
An artist’s illustration of a SpaceX Starfall capsule reentering Earth’s atmosphere. (Image: SpaceX)

SpaceX launched its Starfall reentry capsule for the second time on Tuesday morning, flying it as the payload of the Bandwagon-5 rideshare mission. Falcon 9 lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida at 7:04 a.m. ET with 32 payloads, and the first stage booster, on its 19th flight, landed on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas about nine minutes later.

Starfall was scheduled to separate last, 2 hours and 48 minutes after liftoff. The final customer satellite on SpaceX’s mission timeline comes off the upper stage about an hour and nine minutes in, which left a long gap before the capsule was due to be released alone. SpaceX later posted that the payload deployment sequence is complete. At liftoff, the company said Starfall “enables affordable, routine access to a microgravity environment, providing unique opportunities for on-orbit manufacturing, scientific research, and testing.”

As Teslarati reported before the first Starfall flight, SpaceX made no public announcement about the vehicle then, and nearly everything known came from FAA and FCC filings. This time Starfall is an item name on the official mission page, listed beside paying rideshare customers. SpaceX has still not said what, if anything, is aboard this Starfall, Spaceflight Now noted.

The FAA’s environmental assessment from May describes a disk about 10.2 feet wide and 2.5 feet tall that weighs roughly 4,600 pounds and can bring 2,200 pounds of payload back to Earth.

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Interestingly, the same rocket also carries a competitor’s hardware. Varda Space Industries launched its W-Series 7 capsule on Bandwagon-5, a spacecraft about three times smaller than Starfall that will test whether microgravity can improve the solubility of a cancer drug called Protac. It is Varda’s ninth reentry capsule, and W-8 and W-9 launched earlier this month on Transporter-18. SpaceX has been Varda’s launch provider since the company’s first Falcon 9 rideshare contract in 2021.

SpaceX has not published where or how this Starfall will come down. The preview we ran in June described a recovery from the Pacific Ocean, and the company has not said whether this flight follows the same plan. The launch also arrives hours before SpaceX posts its third quarter results after the market closes, a report we previewed earlier this week.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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