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SpaceX's Elon Musk says Starlink user antennas will be like "UFOs on a stick"
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has teased the first detailed description of the Starlink antennas (“user terminals”) customers will need to connect to the massive satellite internet constellation, revealing a few new and unexpected details about the critical hardware.
Although nearly all public focus is currently (and understandably) on the production and launch of Starlink satellites themselves, that perspective actually glosses over a second element of the constellation that is at least as important. Starlink, after all, is designed to delivered high-speed, low-latency broadband internet to customers around the world, and that service will not just magically appear in the houses of interested consumers. Similar to satellite TV, customers will gain access to their Starlink internet service with an antenna that will have to be installed somewhere on or around the premises.
The challenge that SpaceX faces with the grounded side of Starlink is that – unlike the geostationary satellites that provide satellite TV – satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) are visible from a specific point on the ground for just a handful of minutes each. Whereas satellite TV dishes simply need to be pointed at one unmoving spot in the sky, Starlink ground antennas will need to constantly change where they are pointed (or at least track constantly-moving and changing satellites) and do so seamlessly and with incredible reliability.
A step further and even more importantly, while SpaceX unequivocally needs to make its Starlink user terminals extremely capable, simple, and reliable, it will also need to find a way to mass-produce millions (ultimately tens to hundreds of millions) of units and keep the cost to consumers unprecedentedly low. At least before Musk’s January 7th, 2020 comment, it was believed that Starlink user terminals would have to rely almost entirely on high-performance phased-array antennas, referring to antennas that are steered electronically – i.e. without physically moving.
100% phased-array steering would likely result in the best possible user terminal from the standpoint of reliability and performance. However, full phased-array antennas – while making rapid progress – are still extremely expensive to manufacture compared to more basic alternatives, meaning that it could be an immense challenge – possibly much harder than building and launching Starlink satellites themselves – to mass-produce affordable user terminals under that paradigm. It’s possible that SpaceX has actually come to the same conclusion and is choosing to compromise with its first-generation user terminals, prioritizing time to market and cost per unit at the expense of peak performance and optimal reliability.
Competitor OneWeb may actually have a step up on SpaceX on that front, having reportedly already made great progress developing an exceptionally cheap flat-panel phased-array antenna capable of at least decent throughput (10-50 Mbps). On January 7th, Musk revealed that the current iteration of Starlink user terminals look like a “thin, flat, round UFO on a stick” and features “motors to self-adjust [and ensure it’s at the] optimal angle to view [the] sky.”
The latter tidbit came as a bit of a surprise, given that nearly all cutting-edge phased-array antennas in development feature flat-panel designs and mounting hardware and pointedly avoid mechanical steering – one of the great benefits of phased arrays. It’s ultimately unclear what purpose a mechanical pointing motor would serve on a Starlink user terminal. If the terminal is centered around a true phased-array antenna, mechanical steering would be an almost vestigial addition. However, it’s possible that SpaceX has found a way to hybridize electronic (phased-array) and mechanical steering to produce user terminals that are exceptionally cheap and high-performance at the cost of a reliability risk (moving parts).
Ultimately, it looks like we will find out much sooner than later how exactly SpaceX’s Starlink user terminals work, among other details. Musk says that Starlink will be able to start serving customers in Canada and the Northern US with as few as four additional Starlink launches, meaning that some form of beta test could begin after Starlink V1 L6.
As of now, SpaceX has 1-2 more Starlink missions scheduled to launch later this month. If SpaceX averages two launches per month, Starlink could be serving its first customers as early as March or April 2020.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk follows Trump’s lead, says a SpaceX name change is coming
Elon Musk says SpaceXAI will become SpaceXSI, marking its second rebrand in under three months.
Elon Musk wants to rename his artificial intelligence company again, less than three months after its last rebrand.
In a string of posts on X early Sunday morning, Musk wrote “No more AI,” followed by “SI” and “It’s better.” He then added, “SpaceX is a super intelligence company.” When a user asked whether SpaceXAI could become SpaceXSI, Musk replied, “Yes, we will make that change.”
The posts extend a terminology push that began at the White House last week. On September 29, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to replace “artificial intelligence” and “AI” with “Super Intelligence” and “SI” on government websites, policy documents and press releases. The same day, Musk sat beside Trump as the heads of the largest AI companies signed a voluntary safety accord, as Teslarati reported. Speaking to reporters afterward, Musk caught himself mid sentence: “I think it is worth highlighting the positive benefits of A.I. … S.I., pardon me.”
Elon Musk and Trump are closer than ever, and Tesla could be the big winner
SpaceXSI would be the third name for the business since February. SpaceX acquired xAI on February 2 in a deal that valued the combined company at $1.25 trillion. In May, Musk said xAI would be dissolved as a separate company, and on July 6 the division adopted the SpaceXAI name and a new logo that placed the xAI letters inside the SpaceX identity.
Musk gave no timeline. He did not say whether SpaceXSI would be a legal name change or a branding update, whether the @SpaceXAI handle on X would change, or how the shift would apply to products like Grok. The company had not issued a formal announcement as of Sunday morning.
The change would reach well beyond a chatbot. SpaceXAI now houses Grok, the X platform, the Colossus training clusters in Memphis and the coding tool Cursor, which SpaceX acquired in August. It also runs the orbital compute effort SpaceX is building around Nvidia hardware, which Musk said during the company’s first earnings call would be exclusive to Nvidia.
It’s unclear if rivals like Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Meta and Nvidia have plans to also rename their companies or products. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has continued to say “AI” in public, while Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has gone partway, describing data centers as “super intelligence factories.”
The rename would also line up SpaceX’s AI branding with the federal government’s language as Musk takes on a new advisory role at the Pentagon, where he is helping lead the Project Meridian study on the future of warfare.
Starlink is launching a new beta path for ordinary property owners and local operators to turn a single Starlink kit into a small shared-access business for passive income.
Under the Starlink for Communities program, a host installs one dish and router setup in a location with nearby demand: an apartment complex, campground, rural crossroads, or event site. Neighbors or local users can buy short-term passes rather than full individual subscriptions, giving the Starlink provider a potential path to passive income.
Hour, day, and week passes cover one device. A month pass covers up to four. Starlink handles account creation, payments, access controls, and the satellite link itself. The host’s role is mainly placement, power, and basic upkeep, with earnings tied to each paid connection.
Big news! SpaceX is introducing a new @Starlink for Communities program that lets you earn money by providing Starlink internet to your neighbors or people nearby, who can pay for access by the hour, day, week, or month.
Neighbors pay for the access they need, while the person… pic.twitter.com/DtOUs0Ekvt
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) October 1, 2026
The model echoes the passive-income vision long attached to Tesla’s Robotaxi plans, and it seems like it’s something Musk has hinted toward in the past as he believes AI will make the need to work relatively optional. In both cases, the platform owns the hard parts of matching, billing, and network management, while an individual supplies a physical asset that sits idle much of the time.
A Starlink host’s dish can serve multiple nearby users without each household buying and installing its own terminal. A Tesla owner, under the stated Robotaxi concept, would leave a vehicle enrolled in the fleet during unused hours so the car generates rides while the owner is at work or asleep.
Both arrangements convert under-utilized hardware into a revenue stream. They also let the company scale coverage or capacity without owning every endpoint.
Differences are practical. A Starlink kit is a fixed, relatively low-cost terminal whose main constraint is local congestion and line-of-sight. A Tesla Robotaxi is a mobile, high-value vehicle whose earnings depend on demand density, utilization rates, insurance, cleaning, and charging.
Starlink’s program is already accepting host applications in multiple countries and describes the revenue split as ongoing. Tesla’s owner-network version remains more aspirational.
The company currently operates a limited company-controlled robotaxi service in select areas and has solicited interest from fleet buyers for Cybercab vehicles, while private Full Self-Driving owners have not yet been able to dispatch their own cars for paid rides at scale.
Tesla primes Cybercabs for 4K streaming and high bandwidth gaming with Starlink integration
Starlink is a satellite broadband service operated by SpaceX that uses a constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites to deliver internet to locations where terrestrial broadband is slow, expensive, or absent. It has grown to millions of subscribers worldwide by selling direct residential, mobile, and enterprise terminals, and have become widely available at a wide array at retail locations like Target and Best Buy.
The Communities program extends that reach by letting hosts resell short bursts of capacity to people nearby, while also providing high-speed internet access to those who are simply around a Starlink user.
Tesla just upgraded its headlights through a software update, making them even better without any physical or hardware upgrade.
Tesla’s latest software update is quietly improving nighttime driving for a small number of owners. Version 2026.38 includes a new capability called Dynamic Headlight Leveling.
The feature automatically adjusts the aim of the low beams in response to driving conditions and nearby traffic, with the goal of giving the driver more usable light on the road while reducing glare for oncoming vehicles and traffic ahead.
2026.38 just dropped.
Model 3 gets Dynamic Headlight Leveling — low beams auto-aim around traffic for max visibility, less glare. Model 3 / Y (AMD HW3) also pick up sharper Tesla visuals + an enhanced park scene on the center display.
Legacy Intel cars get Supercharger Site… pic.twitter.com/45ac4AH6Vs
— Frunk To Trunk (@FrunkToTrunk) September 30, 2026
Unlike Tesla’s matrix high-beam system, which selectively dims individual LED segments to create shadows around other cars, Dynamic Headlight Leveling physically tilts the low-beam projectors. Internal motors respond to changes in vehicle pitch.
When the car accelerates hard, climbs a steep grade, or carries extra weight in the rear, the headlights can otherwise point higher than intended. The software counters that movement in real time so the beam stays aimed at the road surface rather than into the eyes of other drivers.
Early indications reveal the update is reaching a limited set of vehicles, including certain Model 3 and Cybertruck examples in the United States and the United Arab Emirates. The rollout does not appear tied to a single hardware revision, and Tesla has not published a broader schedule. It is simply a common waiting game until your car receives it.
The change arrives against a backdrop of wider complaints about headlight glare. Some earlier Model 3 and Model Y vehicles were the subject of an NHTSA recall related to excessive low-beam glare; the software adjustment offers a potential mitigation for cars equipped with the necessary leveling hardware. It does not replace adaptive high beams where those are already available, nor does it alter the basic low-beam pattern itself.
Instead, it keeps an existing beam pointed where it is most useful.
For drivers who have received the update, the system requires no new settings or user input. The headlights simply respond as road conditions and traffic change. As the feature reaches more vehicles, it adds another example of Tesla using over-the-air software to refine existing hardware rather than waiting for a new model year. Nighttime visibility and reduced glare for others are the practical results owners are expected to notice first.
Elon Musk follows Trump’s lead, says a SpaceX name change is coming
Starlink launches Communities Program for passive income through internet sharing
