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SpaceX launches 100th dedicated Starlink mission

Falcon 9 launches Starlink Group 7-1 (Credit SpaceX)

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After being delayed due to Hurricane Hilary last week, which forced the droneship to retreat to the Port of San Diego, SpaceX successfully launched 21 V2 mini Starlink satellites.

Originally meant to launch earlier in the evening, SpaceX waited until the very end of their window, and the mission lifted off at 2:37 a.m. PT (09:37 UTC) from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Station.

This Starlink mission, Group 7-1, was inserted into a 53-degree orbital inclination with the Starlinks separating from the second stage just over an hour after lift-off. This brings the total number of Starlink satellites launched to 4,983 of which 269 are the V2 mini variant.

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The Falcon 9 on this mission was B1061, which launched and landed for the 15th time. It successfully landed on the droneship ‘Of Course I Still Love You’ eight and a half minutes after taking off.

This launch marked the 57th mission of the year for SpaceX, which is slowly closing on its yearly record of 61.

SpaceX is looking to launch the next batch of Starlink satellites as early as this evening, no earlier than 8:47 p.m. ET, the weather outlook as of now shows only a 15% chance of violating weather constraints. If, for some reason, the launch does not occur this evening, it is likely they will postpone the launch until after the Crew 7 mission scheduled for August 25th as it is a much higher priority mission.

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One different aspect of the Group 7-1 mission was the webcast, which, most likely due to the delays, did not have a webcast host and played the launch audio from mission control.

Questions or comments? Shoot me an email at rangle@teslarati.com, or Tweet me @RDAnglePhoto.

Launch journalist, specializing in launch photography. Based on the Space Coast, a short drive from Cape Canaveral and the SpaceX launch pads.

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk confirms xAI’s purchase of five 380 MW natural gas turbines

The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.

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Credit: xAI/X

xAI, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, has purchased five additional 380 MW natural gas turbines from South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility to power its growing supercomputer clusters. 

The deal, which was confirmed by Musk on X, highlights xAI’s effort to aggressively scale its operations.

xAI’s turbine deal details

News of xAI’s new turbines was shared on social media platform X, with user @SemiAnalysis_ stating that the turbines were produced by South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility. As noted in an Asian Business Daily report, Doosan Enerbility announced last October that it signed a contract to supply two 380 MW gas turbines for a major U.S. tech company. Doosan later noted in December that it secured an order for three more 380 MW gas turbines.

As per the X user, the gas turbines would power an additional 600,000+ GB200 NVL72 equivalent size cluster. This should make xAI’s facilities among the largest in the world. In a reply, Elon Musk confirmed that xAI did purchase the turbines. “True,” Musk wrote in a post on X. 

xAI’s ambitions 

Recent reports have indicated that xAI closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development. The funding, as per the AI startup, “will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products.”

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The company also teased the rollout of its upcoming frontier AI model. “Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote in a post on its website. 

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Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s xAI closes upsized $20B Series E funding round

xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website. 

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xAI-supercomputer-memphis-environment-pushback
Credit: xAI

xAI has closed an upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, exceeding the initial $15 billion target to fuel rapid infrastructure scaling and AI product development. 

xAI announced the investment round in a post on its official website. 

A $20 billion Series E round

As noted by the artificial intelligence startup in its post, the Series E funding round attracted a diverse group of investors, including Valor Equity Partners, Stepstone Group, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Qatar Investment Authority, MGX, and Baron Capital Group, among others. 

Strategic partners NVIDIA and Cisco Investments also continued support for building the world’s largest GPU clusters.

As xAI stated, “This financing will accelerate our world-leading infrastructure buildout, enable the rapid development and deployment of transformative AI products reaching billions of users, and fuel groundbreaking research advancing xAI’s core mission: Understanding the Universe.”

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xAI’s core mission

Th Series E funding builds on xAI’s previous rounds, powering Grok advancements and massive compute expansions like the Memphis supercluster. The upsized demand reflects growing recognition of xAI’s potential in frontier AI.

xAI also highlighted several of its breakthroughs in 2025, from the buildout of Colossus I and II, which ended with over 1 million H100 GPU equivalents, and the rollout of the Grok 4 Series, Grok Voice, and Grok Imagine, among others. The company also confirmed that work is already underway to train the flagship large language model’s next iteration, Grok 5. 

“Looking ahead, Grok 5 is currently in training, and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus, and 𝕏 to transform how we live, work, and play,” xAI wrote. 

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Investor's Corner

Tesla gets price target bump, citing growing lead in self-driving

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) stock received a price target update from Pierre Ferragu of Wall Street firm New Street Research, citing the company’s growing lead in self-driving and autonomy.

On Tuesday, Ferragu bumped his price target from $520 to $600, stating that the consensus from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was that Tesla’s lead in autonomy has been sustained, is growing, and sits at a multiple-year lead over its competitors.

CES 2026 validates Tesla’s FSD strategy, but there’s a big lag for rivals: analyst

“The signal from Vegas is loud and clear,” the analyst writes. “The industry isn’t catching up to Tesla; it is actively validating Tesla’s strategy…just with a 12-year lag.”

The note shows that the company’s prowess in vehicle autonomy is being solidified by lagging competitors that claim to have the best method. The only problem is that Tesla’s Vision-based approach, which it adopted back in 2022 with the Model 3 and Model Y initially, has been proven to be more effective than competitors’ approach, which utilizes other technology, such as LiDAR and sensors.

Currently, Tesla shares are sitting at around $433, as the company’s stock price closed at $432.96 on Tuesday afternoon.

Ferragu’s consensus on Tesla shares echoes that of other Wall Street analysts who are bullish on the company’s stock and position within the AI, autonomy, and robotics sector.

Dan Ives of Wedbush wrote in a note in mid-December that he anticipates Tesla having a massive 2026, and could reach a $3 trillion valuation this year, especially with the “AI chapter” taking hold of the narrative at the company.

Ives also said that the big step in the right direction for Tesla will be initiating production of the Cybercab, as well as expanding on the Robotaxi program through the next 12 months:

“…as full-scale volume production begins with the autonomous and robotics roadmap…The company has started to test the all-important Cybercab in Austin over the past few weeks, which is an incremental step towards launching in 2026 with important volume production of Cybercabs starting in April/May, which remains the golden goose in unlocking TSLA’s AI valuation.”

Tesla analyst breaks down delivery report: ‘A step in the right direction’

Tesla has transitioned from an automaker to a full-fledged AI company, and its Robotaxi and Cybercab programs, fueled by the Full Self-Driving suite, are leading the charge moving forward. In 2026, there are major goals the company has outlined. The first is removing Safety Drivers from vehicles in Austin, Texas, one of the areas where it operates a ride-hailing service within the U.S.

Ultimately, Tesla will aim to launch a Level 5 autonomy suite to the public in the coming years.

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