News
SpaceX’s internet satellites have an official name: Starlink
The satellite constellation may also compete with Earth imaging companies and include scientific instruments
Trademark filings have been unearthed by members of the SpaceX subreddit that suggest that the company’s satellite internet constellation will be named Starlink. Previously discussed on Teslarati, recent developments during the process of attaining regulatory permissions could pose a major hurdle for SpaceX’s broadband constellation. Implications of FCC filings aside, SpaceX may still launch its first test satellites later this year. The company has dozens of job openings under “Satellite Development” in the states of Washington and California as of September 18.
The trademark filings, which can be found through the U.S. Patent Office’s Trademark Electronic Search
An unofficial logo designed by the author for SpaceX’s Starlink project. (Eric Ralph/Teslarati)
System (TESS), also hint that SpaceX may expand the potential uses of their satellite constellation into markets for scientific data and persistent Earth imaging. The last several years have seen a meteoric rise in demand for Earth imaging services from the likes of Digital Globe, Planet Labs (which now owns Terra Bella), BlackSky, Urthecast (which acquired Deimos Imaging), and many others. Other companies like Spire hope to capitalize on the benefits of smaller satellites in order to revolutionize weather data and forecasting, as well as global aircraft and boat tracking.
Even if SpaceX ultimately chose to include imaging hardware and scientific instruments on a fraction of the 4,425 satellites intended to comprise their preliminary LEO constellation, the unique nature and sheer scale of SpaceX’s satellite mesh network would make it difficult to compete with. In fact, the mesh network itself could also become a sought-after product for third-party companies, if SpaceX chose to allow access to it.
SpaceX’s broadband constellation has long been expected to utilize optical (laser-based) inter-satellite communications to form a “mesh network” in orbit. Aside from morphing each individual satellite into a flexible communications node, the very existence of an orbital, ground-connected network of thousands of satellites could open the utility of easy space-to-ground communication to any customers willing and able to pay for access. Ground stations often become a primary concern and issue for companies engaged in developing satellite communications, with a vast sea of often unique regulations that must be dealt with. SpaceX’s goal is to provide access to its broadband constellation with nothing more than a pizza-box sized antenna placed on the customer’s roof, a far cry from the large, expensive, and heavily-regulated radio antenna installations that companies like Planet Labs use to serve their customers.
SpaceX’s BFS (“Big Falcon Spaceship”) will require a stable communications network to maintain contact with Earth.(SpaceX)
Farther in the future, a thoroughly-tested orbital platform for communications, ground imagery, and scientific observations could and likely will prove invaluable for SpaceX’s ultimate goal of creating and supporting a permanent human presence on Mars. As of late, NASA has been playing fast and loose with the long-term maintenance of its planetary exploration infrastructure, particularly regarding the future of Earth-Mars communications. Between ESA, China, NASA, and Russia, multiple new Martian landers and orbiters are expected to arrive at the Red Planet over the next decade, and the large amount of data produced by the Curiosity and Opportunity rovers, as well as Mars orbiters, strains the communications infrastructure used for transmitting data back to Earth.
By developing and administrating a communications network between Mars and Earth, SpaceX could gain deep spaceflight experience, allow NASA to more directly focus on science and planetary exploration, and also facilitate the construction of an interplanetary communications foundation SpaceX will need if it hopes to develop a human presence on Mars. In fact, Musk briefly revealed that SpaceX was working with NASA on “Mars communications” at the ISS R&D Conference earlier this year.
Regardless of its potential uses around Mars, SpaceX’s Starlink broadband satellite constellation could revolutionize internet access on Earth and provide SpaceX the resources it needs to develop Mars colonization hardware. Details about the satellite constellation will likely be provided when Elon Musk speaks at this year’s International Astronautical Congress.
Elon Musk
SpaceX just combined Grok, Cursor, and X into one mega plan
SpaceXSI merges Grok, Cursor, and X Premium into one plan, raising questions for Tesla owners.
SpaceX Super Intelligence has rolled out The X Subscription, a single plan that combines Grok, Grok Bot, Cursor, and X Premium.
There are five levels, including a free plan that includes daily Grok access and a starter allowance for Cursor’s coding agents. Plus is $8 per month, Premium is $30, Super is $100, and Ultra is $200. Usage scales as you move up, with Premium offering four times the Plus allowance, Super 15 times, and Ultra 50 times. Annual billing brings the prices down a bit further, with Premium at $300 per year.
We’ve unified plans across Grok, Cursor, and X Premium.
Introducing The X Subscription. https://t.co/SvkrVvBa0p
— SpaceX Super Intelligence (@SpaceXSI) October 12, 2026
The $30 Premium tier is where SpaceXSI says it packs the benefits of SuperGrok, Cursor Pro, and X Premium+, which previously added up to $90 per month. Grok Bot, the agent that handles tasks like ordering food or managing a calendar, is included from Premium upward but not on Plus. Paid plans share one weekly usage pool across Grok and Cursor, and each plan includes at least twice the coding usage of the comparable Cursor plan. Third party models in Cursor remain available on Premium and above, but they are billed separately at API list prices.
That last detail matters because of what has happened around Cursor this year. SpaceX exercised its option to buy the company for $60 billion in June, and the deal closed in August. Weeks later, OpenAI said it will cut Cursor’s access to its models on November 12. Bundling Cursor with Grok usage gives SpaceXSI a reason to steer developers toward its own models.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
For Tesla owners, the connection is Grok Bot. Tesla brought it into its vehicles last month, and at that point access inside the car was limited to SuperGrok Heavy subscribers. Grok Bot is now enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet. Neither SpaceXSI nor Tesla has said how the new plans change inside the car access for owners, or whether a $30 Premium subscription now covers Grok Bot in a personal Tesla. That is the question owners will want answered first.
The company is also changing its name along the way. The rollout follows the rebrand Musk announced on October 4, when he said SpaceXAI would become SpaceXSI, and the plan page now carries that branding.
The X Subscription is available to new customers starting now, and SpaceXSI says it will reach everyone globally over the next few days. Existing SuperGrok, Cursor, and X Premium subscribers do not have to switch. The option to move will appear gradually in billing settings, with a prorated refund for the unused time on the old plan. Switching is permanent once the accounts are unified, and old plans are closed to new sign ups.
Energy
Taiwan power firm bets big on Tesla Megapacks as AI data center thirst grows
Taiwan’s Apollo Power orders 260 Tesla Megapacks, betting AI data centers will need more electricity.
A Taiwanese power company has ordered 260 Tesla Megapack 2XL units, roughly 1GWh of storage, betting that electricity rather than chips will decide how fast AI data centers come online. Apollo Power signed the contract with Tesla’s Taiwan energy arm on October 8, according to the company’s filing with the Taiwan stock exchange.
The filing says the units are meant for behind the meter storage and resilient grid projects, with delivery in batches from the end of 2027 and sites operating in 2028. Apollo and Tesla did not disclose a price, citing a confidentiality agreement. Apollo plans to pay for the equipment through a cash capital increase and bank financing, and it noted the purchase is not revenue and does not mean it holds firm orders from its partners.
Biggo reported that only about 33 units are under signed customer contracts, with roughly 150 more in negotiation. The same report put total project investment near NT$130 billion, but that figure includes installation work, with the equipment itself making up about 40 to 50 percent. In other words, a large share of this order is Apollo reserving supply ahead of demand. Apollo’s chairman told local media global large storage supply is tight, which is why the company locked in the units early, according to Yahoo Taiwan Finance.
Apollo also launched an AI data center and grid resilience alliance with Phison, Gigabyte and Shihlin Electric. The pitch rests on a pilot at Phison’s Zhunan plant, where Apollo and Tesla Energy Taiwan installed grid forming Megapack 2XLs in June. Tesla Energy Taiwan general manager Sun Hsiao-Han said the project went from demo to 1GWh in four months, and that Tesla Energy has deployed more than 50GWh worldwide.
Taiwan’s cabinet has approved amendments that would require large energy users to install their own generation and storage, which gives enterprise storage a regulatory tailwind.
The deal fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked. Tesla’s Megablock targets 1GWh commissioned in 20 business days, a pitch aimed squarely at fast moving data center builds. Megapacks already back xAI’s Colossus in Memphis and a 400MW AI campus in Brazil. Sun Media adds that Megapack 2XL was named among the first products in Nvidia’s DSX Ready qualification for battery storage in AI factories.
Deliveries are more than a year away, so the real test is how much of that 260 unit order turns into signed customer contracts.
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
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