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SpaceX’s Elon Musk and his plans to send 1 million people to Mars
Elon Musk has big plans for Mars and it’s no secret that the SpaceX founder and CEO envisions a future where humans inhabit more than one planet, but how do we get there?
In a series of tweets, Musk outlined a plan to build a city on Mars by 2050, and fill it with 1 million people.
That may seem a bit outlandish but here’s how it would work.
SpaceX operates a fleet of Falcon 9 rockets that routinely launch and land, depositing satellites, cargo and soon people into space. However, in order to reach Mars, Musk and SpaceX need an even larger, more powerful rocket. That’s where Starship comes in.
In stark contrast to the classic black-and-white paint scheme of the Falcon family of rockets, Starship sports a shiny, stainless steel skin that gives off a futuristic vibe. And in true SpaceX fashion, the 387-foot ship will be reusable.
Starship, which is currently in development for future deep-space travel, will be able to ferry as many as 100 passengers beyond low-Earth orbit. The way to achieving that goal is by reducing the cost of spaceflight. He would like for anyone who wants to go to Mars, to be able to.
“Needs to be such that anyone can go if they want, with loans available for those who don’t have money,” Musk wrote.
To that end, Musk said he wants to build a fleet of at least 1,000 Starships—and launch at least three of them every day.
The Starship system is the latest in SpaceX’s troupe of increasingly larger rockets. In 2018, the California-based aerospace company launched and landed its Falcon Heavy rocket for the first time, generating 5 million pounds of thrust from the rocket’s 27 engines. But even that’s not powerful enough for Mars-based missions.
“Megatons per year to orbit are needed for life to become multi-planetary,” Musk tweeted on Thursday.
To date, the heaviest payload to successfully land on Mars was the Curiosity rover, which touched down on the red planet in 2012. That rover weighed in at 1 metric ton (2,200 lbs.). Much heavier payloads will be required if a city is to build on Mars. NASA, SpaceX and others around the world are currently working on ways to land even larger payloads.
Starship is one method currently in development. Combined with its Super Heavy booster would be powered by 41 next-generation Raptor engines, making it the most powerful launch system ever created—even more powerful than the Saturn V moon rocket. Each launch would pack enough thrust to send more than 100 tons (equivalent to seven fully loaded school buses’ worth of mass) and 100 people into orbit at a time.
But the ship would also be able to navigate the tenuous Martian atmosphere and land safely on the red planet’s surface.
Musk estimates that a fleet of 1,000 Starships, able to tote 100 megatons of stuff to Mars, would be required to build a permanent settlement. That fleet could transport about 100 passengers each, totaling 100,000 people per year.
Musk said a lot of work still needs to be done, especially in regards to propellant production. The Raptor engines Musk plans on using are powered by methane (as opposed to the Kerosene and liquid oxygen that power SpaceX’s Falcon series).
Mars has a generous supply of methane, which Musk hopes could be used to establish refueling depots on the red planet.
There’s a lot of work to do if humanity is to reach Mars. SpaceX is currently working around the clock to build its next prototype of the Starship spacecraft. (The previous mockup exploded during testing, but did prove that the craft could get off the ground.)
If all goes well with this iteration, we may see a Starship prototype fly again soon.
Investor's Corner
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
Tesla short seller Michael Burry, the subject of the film “The Big Short,” where he was portrayed by Steve Carell, has revealed he has opened a new bet against the stock.
In a new update to his Substack newsletter in a post titled “Trading Post June 30, 2026,” Burry revealed a new set of bets against Tesla, Caterpillar, NVIDIA, Applied Materials Inc., and the iShares Semiconductor ETF.
In regard to Tesla, Burry wrote:
“And finally I shorted Tesla at 416.22. Happy it jumped back to this level.”
This means Burry likely opened his new short position after the company’s recent rally on Wall Street, which saw Tesla shares sink in mid-May, only to recover to well over the $400 mark. Currently, shares trade at around $427.
The company saw a big Tuesday as shares climbed considerably, over 10 percent. The size of the Tesla short was not provided, nor did Burry give any information on the position’s structure, the number of shares, dollar value, or whether options were used in the short.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
Over the years, Burry has been one of the more vocal critics of Tesla, calling its share price “media inflated,” and saying it was “ridiculously overvalued” as recently as December.
The company has largely transitioned away from being known as an automotive company and instead is much more widely regarded as an AI play, mostly due to its Full Self-Driving efforts, Optimus robot development, and data collection related to both.
This has not pulled those skeptics away from being vocal about their distaste for how Tesla is valued, but there’s no denying that the company is a global force in many things, including sustainable energy, automotive, and AI.
Wedbush Securities is initiating stock coverage on SpaceX (NASDAQ: SPCX), marking the first comments on the company since it went public several weeks ago. Wedbush and its analyst handling coverage, Dan Ives, are widely bullish on fellow Musk company Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA).
Ives wrote his first note initiating coverage of SpaceX shares on Wednesday with a $190 price target and an ‘Outperform’ rating. The firm believes the company is well positioned off of its IPO because of its wide array of projects, including AI compute power and infrastructure, connectivity projects, and launches.
“We view SpaceX as one of the most differentiated assets within the tech market with a strong footprint across its three core markets, with Starlink driving success with connectivity,” Ives wrote, “Starship launches leading to a demand flywheel and increasing deal flow for its Colossus clusters.”
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Wedbush leans heavily on Starlink, which they say is the “profitability driver given the strength of its recurring revenue base of ~12 million subscribers as of June 5th.” Ives believes Starlink is still in the “early innings” of penetrating the global telecommunications and broadband market, as it only holds less than a 1 percent share. However, this number is sure to increase over time.
It also highlights the importance of Starship, which it says is an “essential layer” of SpaceX’s overall success. SpaceX developing and displaying the ability to reuse rockets is a major cost and reliability advantage “as it reduces the necessary hardware launch costs while generating a feedback loop for future flights to improve their launch flight rate without accelerating capex spend.”
Finally, SpaceX’s recent AI/Compute projects are also very elementary, Ives writes. It is worth mentioning Wedbush said its $190 price target is derived from a valuation forecast that sees the company yielding roughly $2.48 trillion of implied enterprise value.
There are also some factors that Wedbush did not take into account with its initial coverage. The firm wrote in the note:
“We note that there is optional value coming from Starship’s accelerating scale towards sub-$200/kg unit economics, orbital data centers, and enterprise AI monetization as these factors could drive meaningful upside but these face major hurdles, so we do not take that into account with our valuation.”
SpaceX shares are down just over 2 percent today, trading at around $167 at the time of publication.
Tesla has expanded the footprint of a massive safety feature worldwide with a recent Software Update labeled as 2026.20.6. The expansion of the “Blind Spot Warning While Parked” feature represents the more widespread availability of the feature, which aims to prevent “dooring.”
Dooring is when a driver or passenger opens a car door into the path of an oncoming road user, usually a cyclist or motorcyclist. It is among the most common types of cycling accidents, the League of American Bicyclists says.
For this reason, Tesla created a feature that warns occupants not to open the door because an object is approaching. The feature will sound a chime, and it will also delay the opening of the door to prevent an incident.
The release notes state (via Not a Tesla App):
“If you attempt to open a door while an approaching object is detected in your blind spot (for example, a bicyclist approaching from behind) a chime sounds, and your door will not open upon initial button press. Wait a short time and press the button a second time to override the warning.”
Tesla initially rolled out this feature back in 2024 with the Model 3 “Highland.” However, it remained with the Model 3 exclusively for over a year; that was until Tesla added it to the Cybertruck this past Spring.
Now, it is making its way to the new Model Y, 2021 and newer Model S, and 2021 or newer Model X.
The prevention of dooring incidents could eliminate many injuries to cyclists, especially in an urban setting. Dooring accounts for 10-20 percent of bike-related crashes in major cities, and over 17,000 dooring-related incidents were treated in the U.S. over the course of a decade. These usually involve fractures, contusions, and head trauma.
Tesla gets its latest short from Michael Burry: ‘Happy it jumped back to this level’
SpaceX gets initial stock coverage from Tesla’s biggest bull
