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60 hours after docking, B1046 was loaded horizontally onto its transporter. (Tom Cross) 60 hours after docking, B1046 was loaded horizontally onto its transporter. (Tom Cross)

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SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Block 5 boosters landing in great shape as competitors betray anxiety

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SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell has announced that the company’s upgraded Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket – debuted in May 2018 – is making its way through peak-stress launches, reentries, and landings in “much better shape than anticipated”, ultimately meaning that Falcon 9 booster refurbishment can now take as little as four weeks between flights.

At the same time, Shotwell’s industry peers and competitors continue to betray some level of real anxiety about SpaceX’s meteoric rise and technological step up with displays of hyperbolic overconfidence.

Speaking on a panel of launch providers at 2018’s Paris-based World Satellite Business Week conference, the discussion was rich with banter and comparatively heated comments from leaders of companies like Arianespace, ILS (International Launch Services, a commercial arm of Roscosmos), ULA, and Blue Origin, as well as SpaceX’s own Gwynne Shotwell. As effortlessly confident as ever, Shotwell’s presence and, perhaps, the general state of the industry appeared to trigger some rather brash and thoroughly entertaining fireworks from other executives.

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United Launch Alliance’s Tory Bruno, CEO of a company that has literally never recovered or reused any flown hardware from one of its launches, noted that ULA’s wholly-unproven and untested strategy for reuse – unlikely to begin flight tests before the mid-2020s – would likely be superior to SpaceX’s own approach, apparently owing to the fact that the company has yet to reuse their Falcon 9 boosters dozens of times. ULA has yet to so much as announce the rocket engines it will use on its next-generation expendable rocket, known as Vulcan, expected to conduct its first-ever launch no earlier than the second half of 2020. Their current Atlas 5, Delta II, and Delta IV launch vehicles are and will remain 100% expendable up to the end of their careers.

Nevertheless, ILS President Kirk Pysher didn’t let Bruno steal all of the allotted braggadocio, making the humorous claim that “our customers don’t care about reusability” so long as “their launch is on time, reliable, and at the right price point”. Indeed, if one could actually launch a fully expendable rocket at a price point competitive with an organically-priced reusable rocket (i.e. no artificial inflation to recoup $1 billion of investment in the tech, which SpaceX is choosing to do), Pysher’s statement would be 100% accurate. Instead, ILS can lay claim to no more than a tiny fraction of commercial launch contracts today, dramatically hobbled by the fact that development of the company’s only potential competitive advantage – Proton Medium – has been indefinitely frozen, likely killing the rocket.

https://twitter.com/FDF/status/1039532650355204102

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All things considered, Shotwell remains a breath of fresh air in an increasingly stale group, stoic, factual, and straightforward in the face of cantankerous and withering titans of the rocket industry. Speaking last week to a Masters of Business Administration class in Madrid, Spain, Shotwell bluntly and rather accurately stated that “with the advent of SpaceX, I think everyone in the industry is happy except other launch providers.” Much like other similar sessions at conferences earlier this year and otherwise, today’s conference panel of launch provider executives certainly serves to drive home just how correct the SpaceX President is.

https://twitter.com/FDF/status/1039530577454686209


For prompt updates, on-the-ground perspectives, and unique glimpses of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet check out our brand new LaunchPad and LandingZone newsletters!

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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Elon Musk

Elon Musk teases previously unknown Tesla Optimus capability

Elon Musk revealed over the weekend that the humanoid robot should be able to utilize Tesla’s dataset for Full Self-Driving (FSD) to operate cars not manufactured by Tesla.

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Credit: @heydave7/X

Elon Musk revealed a new capability that Tesla Optimus should have, and it is one that will surely surprise many people, as it falls outside the CEO’s scope of his several companies.

Tesla Optimus is likely going to be the biggest product the company ever develops, and Musk has even predicted that it could make up about 80 percent of the company’s value in the coming years.

Teasing the potential to eliminate any trivial and monotonous tasks from human life, Optimus surely has its appeal.

However, Musk revealed over the weekend that the humanoid robot should be able to utilize Tesla’s dataset for Full Self-Driving (FSD) to operate cars not manufactured by Tesla:

FSD would essentially translate from operation in Tesla vehicles from a driverless perspective to Optimus, allowing FSD to basically be present in any vehicle ever made. Optimus could be similar to a personal chauffeur, as well as an assistant.

Optimus has significant hype behind it, as Tesla has been meticulously refining its capabilities. Along with Musk’s and other executives’ comments about its potential, it’s clear that there is genuine excitement internally.

This past weekend, the company continued to stoke hype behind Optimus by showing a new video of the humanoid robot learning Kung Fu and training with a teacher:

Tesla plans to launch its Gen 3 version of Optimus in the coming months, and although we saw a new-look robot just last month, thanks to a video from Salesforce CEO and Musk’s friend Marc Benioff, we have been told that this was not a look at the company’s new iteration.

Instead, Gen 3’s true design remains a mystery for the general public, but with the improvements between the first two iterations already displayed, we are sure the newest version will be something special.

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Investor's Corner

Cantor Fitzgerald reaffirms bullish view on Tesla after record Q3 deliveries

The firm reiterated its Overweight rating and $355 price target.

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(Credit: Tesla)

Cantor Fitzgerald is maintaining its bullish outlook on Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) following the company’s record-breaking third quarter of 2025. 

The firm reiterated its Overweight rating and $355 price target, citing strong delivery results driven by a rush of consumer purchases ahead of the end of the federal tax credit on September 30.

On Tesla’s vehicle deliveries in Q3 2025

During the third quarter of 2025, Tesla delivered a total of 497,099 vehicles, significantly beating analyst expectations of 443,079 vehicles. As per Cantor Fitzgerald, this was likely affected by customers rushing at the end of Q3 to purchase an EV due to the end of the federal tax credit, as noted in an Investing.com report. 

“On 10/2, TSLA pre-announced that it delivered 497,099 vehicles in 3Q25 (its highest quarterly delivery in company history), significantly above Company consensus of 443,079, and above 384,122 in 2Q25. This was due primarily to a ‘push forward effect’ from consumers who rushed to purchase or lease EVs ahead of the $7,500 EV tax credit expiring on 9/30,” the firm wrote in its note.

A bright spot in Tesla Energy

Cantor Fitzgerald also highlighted that while Tesla’s full-year production and deliveries would likely fall short of 2024’s 1.8 million total, Tesla’s energy storage business remains a bright spot in the company’s results.

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“Tesla also announced that it had deployed 12.5 GWh of energy storage products in 3Q25, its highest in company history vs. our estimate/Visible Alpha consensus of 11.5/10.9 GWh (and vs. ~6.9 GWh in 3Q24). Tesla’s Energy Storage has now deployed more products YTD than all of last year, which is encouraging. We expect Energy Storage revenue to surpass $12B this year, and to account for ~15% of total revenue,” the firm stated. 

Tesla’s strong Q3 results have helped lift its market capitalization to $1.47 trillion as of writing. The company also teased a new product reveal on X set for October 7, which the firm stated could serve as another near-term catalyst.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s xAI becomes Memphis’ 2nd largest taxpayer in just one year: report

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, is reshaping Memphis’s economic landscape.

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Credit: xAI

Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, is reshaping Memphis’s economic landscape. In just twelve months, the company has become the city and county’s second largest taxpayer.

The update was related in a report from The Wall Street Journal.

Memphis’ second-largest taxpayer

xAI is currently transforming a defunct Mississippi power plant into a crucial hub for AI, supplying electricity to its Colossus supercomputer cluster and its successor, Colossus 2. Together, the Colossi supercomputers will host more than half a million Nvidia chips that would be used for the development and improvement of Grok, xAI’s large language model. 

The buildout has injected billions into the region, making xAI one of Memphis’s most significant private investors and a symbol of the city’s high-tech aspirations. Bill Dunavant III, a Memphis businessman who sits on the board of directors of the city’s chamber of commerce, highlighted xAI’s contribution to the city’s economy in a comment to the WSJ

“In one year, xAI has become the second largest taxpayer in the city and county after FedEx,” he said. A spokesman for the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce has also stated that xAI has demonstrated “substantial economic commitment to our region, without any tax incentives.”

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Not without controversy

Despite the economic boost, xAI’s footprint has drawn scrutiny. The company’s natural-gas-powered turbines are expected to consume a substantial amount of water and electricity. Critics have also expressed worries about pollution and increased utility costs, though others see Musk’s wastewater recycling plans and cleanup initiatives as meaningful offsets.

As per the WSJ, xAI’s positioning in the market may be quite different than what Musk is typically used to, considering that the CEO tends to become a first mover in key industries, such as the EV segment with Tesla and private spaceflight with SpaceX. With xAI, however, he is catching up to competitors, the most notable of which is a company he co-founded, OpenAI, and its ubiquitous large language model, ChatGPT.

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