News
SpaceX on track with Crew Dragon program despite thin NASA budget
On Thursday (Oct. 10th) NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, and NASA Demo-2 astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley spoke at the company’s Hawthorne, CA headquarters after the NASA and SpaceX heads toured the factory and spoke with company engineers.
While discussing NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and SpaceX’s ongoing development, Musk revealed – among other things – one particularly impressive detail: the company’s Crew Dragon program is almost perfectly sticking to NASA’s budget.
During an audience Q&A session, Bridenstine touched on the impact federal funding has had on the NASA Commercial Crew Program, partially correctly stating that “the timelines never changed*, but the budget got cut. So, there are consequences when the budget doesn’t meet the vision.” The objective of returning to NASA the ability to launch its own astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), however, was and still is a central priority.
*Bridenstine’s claim that “the timelines never changed” is explicitly false. In reality, Boeing and SpaceX launch schedules almost immediately changed as a direct result of systematic Congressional underfunding, slipping at least two years after egregious budget cuts from 2011-2014.
Musk further clarified that “the SpaceX Commercial Crew Program is within 1% of the (federal) budget”, meaning that Crew Dragon’s development costs have almost exactly matched the $2.6B NASA awarded SpaceX to build the spacecraft. He went on to reinforce that SpaceX has continuously operated within the confines of that overarching budget, while the three or so years of delays Crew Dragon has suffered can in many ways be traced directly back to the fact that “the NASA [budget] request for Commercial Crew for several years was substantially reduced by congress, I think in some cases by 50%.”
As Musk notes, in response to such a dramatic lack of funding, SpaceX impressively “didn’t spend more money, it just took longer”. He also politely hinted at his awareness of the political machinations that caused those shortfalls, stating that in “the same years that commercial crew was dramatically underfunded, some other unmentioned programs were overfunded.” The “unmentioned programs” that Musk alluded to are, of course, NASA’s own Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft, both of which are infamously behind schedule and over budget
As previously reported on Teslarati:
“Former NASA deputy administrator Lori Garver noted that over the ~5 years Congress consistently withheld hundreds of millions of dollars of critical funds from Commercial Crew, NASA’s SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft were just as consistently overfunded above and beyond their budget requests. From 2011 to 2016 alone, SLS and Orion programs requested $11B and received an incredible $16.3B (148%) from Congress, while Commercial Crew requested $5.8B and received $2.4B (41%).”
Beyond the simple fact that there hasn’t been enough federal funding, Bridenstine also mentioned that CCP has suffered from misaligned – and completely unattainable – timelines given the underfunding. He continued to push his platform that, as the NASA Administrator, he has been focused on returning to “realism when it comes to terms of cost and schedule.” He stated that there needs to be more “realism built into the development timelines.”
In an effort to ensure that the safety of the NASA astronauts remains the top priority for Commercial Crew, Bridenstine clarified that the timeline is a “developmental timeline,” and one which may see further delays should something not go as planned or other safety issues arise. Musk assured that SpaceX is more than capable of supporting CCP and upholding its end of the bargain by stating that “we’re going to get this done. We’re going to get [this] done soon and we’re going to get [this] done right.”
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News
Tesla dispels reports of ‘sales suspension’ in California
“This was a “consumer protection” order about the use of the term “Autopilot” in a case where not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem.
Sales in California will continue uninterrupted.”
Tesla has dispelled reports that it is facing a thirty-day sales suspension in California after the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) issued a penalty to the company after a judge ruled it “misled consumers about its driver-assistance technology.”
On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that the California DMV was planning to adopt the penalty but decided to put it on ice for ninety days, giving Tesla an opportunity to “come into compliance.”
Tesla enters interesting situation with Full Self-Driving in California
Tesla responded to the report on Tuesday evening, after it came out, stating that this was a “consumer protection” order that was brought up over its use of the term “Autopilot.”
The company said “not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem,” yet a judge and the DMV determined it was, so they want to apply the penalty if Tesla doesn’t oblige.
However, Tesla said that its sales operations in California “will continue uninterrupted.”
It confirmed this in an X post on Tuesday night:
This was a “consumer protection” order about the use of the term “Autopilot” in a case where not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem.
Sales in California will continue uninterrupted.
— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) December 17, 2025
The report and the decision by the DMV and Judge involved sparked outrage from the Tesla community, who stated that it should do its best to get out of California.
One X post said California “didn’t deserve” what Tesla had done for it in terms of employment, engineering, and innovation.
Tesla has used Autopilot and Full Self-Driving for years, but it did add the term “(Supervised)” to the end of the FSD suite earlier this year, potentially aiming to protect itself from instances like this one.
This is the first primary dispute over the terminology of Full Self-Driving, but it has undergone some scrutiny at the federal level, as some government officials have claimed the suite has “deceptive” naming. Previous Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was vocally critical of the use of the name “Full Self-Driving,” as well as “Autopilot.”
News
New EV tax credit rule could impact many EV buyers
We confirmed with a Tesla Sales Advisor that any current orders that have the $7,500 tax credit applied to them must be completed by December 31, meaning delivery must take place by that date. However, it is unclear at this point whether someone could still claim the credit when filing their tax returns for 2025 as long as the order reflects an order date before September 30.
Tesla owners could be impacted by a new EV tax credit rule, which seems to be a new hoop to jump through for those who benefited from the “extension,” which allowed orderers to take delivery after the loss of the $7,500 discount.
After the Trump Administration initiated the phase-out of the $7,500 EV tax credit, many were happy to see the rules had been changed slightly, as deliveries could occur after the September 30 cutoff as long as orders were placed before the end of that month.
However, there appears to be a new threshold that EV buyers will have to go through, and it will impact their ability to get the credit, at least at the Point of Sale, for now.
Delivery must be completed by the end of the year, and buyers must take possession of the car by December 31, 2025, or they will lose the tax credit. The U.S. government will be closing the tax credit portal, which allows people to claim the credit at the Point of Sale.
🚨UPDATE: $7,500 Tax Credit Portal “Closes By End of Year”.
This is bad news for pending Tesla buyers (MYP) looking to lock in the $7,500 Tax Credit.
“it looks like the portal closes by end of the year so there be no way for us to guarantee the funds however, we will try our… pic.twitter.com/LnWiaXL30k
— DennisCW | wen my L (@DennisCW_) December 15, 2025
We confirmed with a Tesla Sales Advisor that any current orders that have the $7,500 tax credit applied to them must be completed by December 31, meaning delivery must take place by that date.
However, it is unclear at this point whether someone could still claim the credit when filing their tax returns for 2025 as long as the order reflects an order date before September 30.
If not, the order can still go through, but the buyer will not be able to claim the tax credit, meaning they will pay full price for the vehicle.
This puts some buyers in a strange limbo, especially if they placed an order for the Model Y Performance. Some deliveries have already taken place, and some are scheduled before the end of the month, but many others are not expecting deliveries until January.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk takes latest barb at Bill Gates over Tesla short position
Bill Gates placed a massive short bet against Tesla of ~1% of our total shares, which might have cost him over $10B by now
Elon Musk took his latest barb at former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates over his short position against the company, which the two have had some tensions over for a number of years.
Gates admitted to Musk several years ago through a text message that he still held a short position against his sustainable car and energy company. Ironically, Gates had contacted Musk to explore philanthropic opportunities.
Elon Musk explains Bill Gates beef: He ‘placed a massive bet on Tesla dying’
Musk said he could not take the request seriously, especially as Gates was hoping to make money on the downfall of the one company taking EVs seriously.
The Tesla frontman has continued to take shots at Gates over the years from time to time, but the latest comment came as Musk’s net worth swelled to over $600 billion. He became the first person ever to reach that threshold earlier this week, when Tesla shares increased due to Robotaxi testing without any occupants.
Musk refreshed everyone’s memory with the recent post, stating that if Gates still has his short position against Tesla, he would have lost over $10 billion by now:
Bill Gates placed a massive short bet against Tesla of ~1% of our total shares, which might have cost him over $10B by now
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2025
Just a month ago, in mid-November, Musk issued his final warning to Gates over the short position, speculating whether the former Microsoft frontman had still held the bet against Tesla.
“If Gates hasn’t fully closed out the crazy short position he has held against Tesla for ~8 years, he had better do so soon,” Musk said. This came in response to The Gates Foundation dumping 65 percent of its Microsoft position.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk sends final warning to Bill Gates over short position
Musk’s involvement in the U.S. government also drew criticism from Gates, as he said that the reductions proposed by DOGE against U.S.A.I.D. were “stunning” and could cause “millions of additional deaths of kids.”
“Gates is a huge liar,” Musk responded.
It is not known whether Gates still holds his Tesla short position.
Tesla dispels reports of ‘sales suspension’ in California
New EV tax credit rule could impact many EV buyers
