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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk teases Mars breakthroughs as Starship design radically changes

SpaceX's massive BFR mandrel, used to mold its composite tanks and structures. (SpaceX)

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During an interview with Axios, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk noted that he was “[really fired up about] a number of breakthroughs [SpaceX had recently made]” while being asked about his thoughts on the likelihood of him personally going to Mars (“70%”).

The minute-long teaser did not go much deeper but it certainly raises a number of questions (and hints at explanations) for a rapid-fire series of contradictory developments and changes to SpaceX’s BFR – since renamed to “Starship” and “Super Heavy” –  per a series of tweets from Musk over the last two weeks.

In a typical Muskian fashion, when Axios interviewers asked, “What is the likelihood that you personally will go to Mars?”, the CEO responded with an exact percentage – 70% – without skipping a beat. Musk also fervently and rather eloquently refuted the popular and harebrained idea that any SpaceX-enabled Mars colony would simply become “an escape hatch for the rich”. If the rich wanted Mars or lunar bases as “escape hatches”, there are dozens of multibillionaires that could singlehandedly fund Musk’s estimated $2-10B price tag for the completion of the entire BFR development program while still retaining 50-90% of their net worth.

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Musk’s retort is worth reading in full.

Mike Allen: “[Mars] could be an escape hatch for rich people.”

Elon Musk: “No! Your probability of dying on Mars is much higher than earth. Really the ad for going to Mars would be like Shackleton’s ad for going to the Antarctic. It’s gonna be hard. There’s a good chance of death, going in a little can through deep space. You might land successfully. Once you land successfully, you’ll be working nonstop to build the base. So, you know, not much time for leisure, and once you get there, even after doing all this, it’s a very harsh environment, so there’s a good chance you die there. We think you can come back but we’re not sure. Now, does that sound like an escape hatch for rich people?”

Getting to here is not a cheap endeavor and loans could help SpaceX pave the way. (SpaceX)

Back to BFR

While thoroughly entertaining, the most interesting aspect of this one-minute teaser was the approximate two seconds where Musk suggested that SpaceX had recently made several major breakthroughs in the context of BFR and Mars. What exactly those breakthroughs could be is entirely unclear, but the fact that Musk seemed positive about the recent developments and spoke of “breakthroughs” at all feels like an encouraging sign that the last two weeks of Musk’s chaotic announcements, updates, and abrupt cancellations are less indicative of program instability than they initially seemed to be.

Most notably, Musk appeared to announce and then completely cancel a sort of mini-spaceship that SpaceX was to base off of Falcon 9’s upper stage as a BFR spaceship technology demonstrator in less than two weeks. If realized, that mini-BFS would have reentered Earth’s atmosphere at orbital velocities to flight-test hypersonic fins and a new “ultra light” heat shield that will be (or would have been) critical for the overall success of BFS/Starship.

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Ironically, in the middle of writing this article, Musk tweeted specifically about “fundamental” changes to the spaceship, leaving little more than the general appearance and propulsion systems unchanged. In essence, the design of BFS/Starship is now almost unrecognizable when compared with past iterations, at least from a perspective of the ship’s most critical systems.If Starship will not be built out of composites, then it’s possible that the multiple years SpaceX engineers and technicians have spent trying to develop large carbon composite propellant tanks (2016-present) and the time, energy, and capital put into those efforts will be almost entirely for naught if BFR pivots away from composite tanks.

 

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By all appearances, dozens of employees have spent the last year accepting delivery of $10-50M worth of custom-built composite tooling, setting it up, and building giant composite tank domes and segments. If composite tanks are no longer planned for the booster or spaceship, all that work may have been for nothing. Needless to say, we could certainly do for Musk’s proposed Reddit AMA – if not an entirely new BFR update event – to shed some light on the machinations behind these earthshaking programmatic changes.

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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Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet

Tesla’s folding V4 Supercharger ships 33% more per truck, cuts deployment time and cost significantly.

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Tesla V4 Supercharger installation ramping in Europe

Tesla is rolling out a folding V4 Supercharger design, an engineering change that allows 33% more units to fit on a single delivery truck, cuts deployment time in half, and reduces overall installation cost by roughly 20%.

The folding mechanism addresses one of the least glamorous but most consequential bottlenecks in charging infrastructure: getting hardware from factory floor to job site efficiently. By collapsing the form factor for transit and unfolding into an operational configuration on arrival, the new design dramatically reduces the logistics overhead that has historically slowed Supercharger rollouts, particularly at large or remote sites where multiple units are needed simultaneously.

The timing aligns with a broader acceleration in Tesla’s network strategy. In March 2026, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet after more than seven years and 15,000 units, pivoting entirely to V4 cabinet production. The V4 cabinet itself is already a generational leap, delivering up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, while supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. The folding transport innovation layers logistical efficiency on top of that technical foundation.

Tesla launches first ‘true’ East Coast V4 Supercharger: here’s what that means

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Tesla Charging’s Director Max de Zegher, commenting on the V4 cabinet when it launched, captured the operational philosophy behind these changes: “Posts can peak up to 500kW for cars, but we need less than 1MW across 8 posts to deliver maximum power to cars 99% of the time.” The design philosophy has always been about maximizing real-world throughput, not just peak specs, and the folding transport upgrade extends that thinking into the supply chain itself.

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The Boring Company clears final Nashville hurdle: Music City loop is full speed ahead

The Boring Company has cleared its final Nashville hurdles, putting the Music City Loop on track for 2026.

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The Boring Company has cleared one of its most significant regulatory milestones yet, securing a key easement from the Music City Center in Nashville just days ago, the latest in a series of approvals that have pushed the Music City Loop project firmly into construction reality.

On March 24, 2026, the Convention Center Authority voted to grant The Boring Company access to an easement along the west side of the Music City Center property, allowing tunneling beneath the privately owned venue. The move follows a unanimous 7-0 vote by the Metro Nashville Airport Authority on February 18, and a joint state and federal approval from the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration on February 25. Together, these green lights have cleared the path for a roughly 10-mile underground tunnel connecting downtown Nashville to Nashville International Airport, with potential extensions into midtown along West End Avenue.

Music City Loop could highlight The Boring Company’s real disruption

Nashville was selected by The Boring Company largely because of its rapid population growth and the strain that growth has placed on surface infrastructure. Traffic has become a persistent problem for residents, convention visitors, and airport travelers alike. The Music City Loop promises an approximately 8-minute underground transit time between downtown and the Nashville International Airport (BNA), removing thousands of vehicles from surface roads daily while operating as a fully electric, zero-emissions system at no cost to taxpayers.

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The project fits squarely within a broader vision Musk has championed for years. In responding to a breakdown of the Loop’s construction costs, Musk posted on X: “Tunnels are so underrated.” The comment reflected a longstanding belief that underground transit represents one of the most cost-effective and scalable infrastructure solutions available. The Boring Company has claimed it can build 13 miles of twin tunnels in Nashville for between $240 million and $300 million total, a fraction of what comparable projects cost elsewhere in the country.

The Las Vegas Loop, The Boring Company’s first operational system, has served as a proof of concept. During the CONEXPO trade show in March 2026, the Vegas Loop transported approximately 82,000 passengers over five days at the Las Vegas Convention Center, demonstrating the system’s capacity during large-scale events. Nashville draws millions of convention visitors and tourists each year, and local business leaders have pointed to that same capacity as a major draw for supporting the project.

The Music City Loop was first announced in July 2025. Construction began within hours of the February 25 state approval, with The Boring Company’s Prufrock tunneling machine already in the ground the same evening. The first operational segment is targeted for late 2026, with the full route expected to be complete by 2029. The project represents one of the largest privately funded infrastructure efforts currently underway in the United States.

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Elon Musk demands Delaware Judge recuse herself after ‘support’ post celebrating $2B court loss

A banner on the post read “Katie McCormick supports this,” using LinkedIn’s heart-in-hand “support” icon, an endorsement stronger than a simple “like.” Musk’s lawyers argue the action creates “a perception of bias against Mr. Musk,” warranting immediate recusal to preserve judicial impartiality.

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Ministério Das Comunicações, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s legal team has filed a motion demanding that Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick disqualify herself from an ongoing high-stakes Tesla shareholder lawsuit.

The filing, submitted March 25, cites an apparent LinkedIn “support” reaction from McCormick’s account to a post celebrating a $2 billion jury verdict against Musk in a separate California securities-fraud case.

The move escalates long-simmering tensions between Musk, Tesla, and the Delaware judiciary, where McCormick previously presided over the landmark challenge to Musk’s record $56 billion 2018 compensation package.

Delaware Supreme Court reinstates Elon Musk’s 2018 Tesla CEO pay package

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The LinkedIn post was written by Harry Plotkin, a Southern California jury consultant who assisted the plaintiffs who sued Musk over 2022 tweets about his Twitter acquisition. Plotkin praised the trial team for “standing up for the little guy against the richest man in the world.”

The New York Post initially reported the story.

A banner on the post read “Katie McCormick supports this,” using LinkedIn’s heart-in-hand “support” icon, an endorsement stronger than a simple “like.” Musk’s lawyers argue the action creates “a perception of bias against Mr. Musk,” warranting immediate recusal to preserve judicial impartiality.

McCormick swiftly denied intentional endorsement. In a letter to attorneys, she stated she was unaware of the interaction until LinkedIn notified her. She wrote:

“I either did not click the ‘support’ icon at all, or I did so accidentally. I do not believe that I did it accidentally.”

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The chancellor maintains the reaction was inadvertent, but critics, including Musk allies, call the explanation implausible given the platform’s deliberate interface.

McCormick’s central role in the Tesla pay-package litigation underscores the stakes. In Tornetta v. Musk, in January 2024, she ruled the 2018 performance-based stock-option grant, potentially worth $56 billion at the time and now valued far higher, was invalid.

The package consisted of 12 tranches of options, each vesting only after Tesla achieved ambitious market-cap and operational milestones. McCormick found Musk exercised “transaction-specific control” over Tesla as a controlling stockholder, the board lacked sufficient independence, and proxy disclosures to shareholders were materially deficient.

Applying the entire-fairness standard, she concluded defendants failed to prove the deal was fair in process or price and ordered full rescission, an “unfathomable” remedy she described as necessary to deter fiduciary breaches.

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After the ruling, Tesla shareholders ratified the package a second time in June 2024. McCormick rejected that ratification in December 2024, holding that post-trial votes could not cure defects.

Tesla appealed. On December 19 of last year, the Delaware Supreme Court unanimously reversed the rescission remedy while largely leaving McCormick’s liability findings intact. The high court deemed total unwinding inequitable and impractical, restoring the package but awarding the plaintiff only nominal $1 damages plus reduced attorneys’ fees. Musk ultimately received the full award.

The current recusal motion arises in yet another Tesla derivative suit before McCormick. Legal observers say granting it could signal heightened scrutiny of judicial social-media activity; denial might reinforce perceptions of an insular Delaware bench.

Broader fallout includes accelerated corporate migration out of Delaware, Musk himself moved Tesla’s incorporation to Texas after the first ruling, and renewed debate over whether the state’s specialized courts remain the gold standard for corporate governance disputes.

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A decision is expected soon; whichever way it lands, the episode highlights the fragile balance between judicial independence and public confidence in high-profile litigation.

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