News
SpaceX adds new ship to fleet after fairing catcher Ms. Tree nails second recovery in a row
In a telltale sign that SpaceX is growing much more confident in its ability to consistently recover Falcon 9 fairings, the company has accepted delivery of second recovery ship almost identical to GO Ms. Tree (formerly Mr. Steven) just days after nailing its second fairing catch in a row.
Previously known as M/V Captain Elliott, the new ship appears to have been acquired (or leased) by Guice Offshore (GO) from SEACOR Marine, who purchased Elliott from struggling marine services company Seatran Marine in 2017. One way or another, SpaceX now has a pair of Port Canaveral-based fairing recovery ships in hand – named Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief – and is thus making excellent progress towards catching and reusing both halves of the same Falcon 9 (or Heavy) fairing.
Splurging on ‘ships
Put simply, whoever is paying for or has paid for the two fast supply vessels (FSVs) that are now a part of SpaceX’s rocket recovery fleet has/had a tidy sum to spend. For ships as large, new, and high-performance as Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief, both completed in the mid-2010s, SpaceX or GO would be lucky to pay less than $10M apiece and each ship could easily cost more than $20M, depending on a variety of unknowns. Previous owner Seatran Marine is/was admittedly in dire financial straits, so that could have resulted in an effective fire-sale discount.
Regardless, this is to say that SpaceX was likely willing to splurge and open its wallet wide for extremely high-quality fairing recovery vessels because of just how expensive those fairings are. According to CEO Elon Musk circa 2017, it costs SpaceX $5-6M total to produce a set of Falcon fairing halves, equivalent to roughly 10% of the cost of a Falcon 9 launch ($50M-60M).
As an example, assume that SpaceX paid a full $50M for Ms. Tree and Ms. Chief – effectively a worst-case cost scenario. Assume that recovering and reusing net-caught Falcon fairings still costs half as much as building new fairings ($3M for two halves), also likely a worst-case scenario given the relative mechanical and propulsive simplicity of fairings.
In this mediocre-at-best scenario, it would still take SpaceX less than 20 launches with both halves recovered to completely recoup the cost of both fairing recovery ships. In the event that reusing caught fairings is only 25% as expensive as building new fairings, SpaceX could recoup its fleet investments in just 10 launches. In fact, cost reduction may even be a secondary consideration next to the potential for effectively doubling fairing production with the same facilities. From that perspective, spending, say, $50M on development and another $50M on cutting-edge recovery vessels could easily be a bargain, especially compared to the $1B+ SpaceX has spent deloping Falcon 9 booster reusability.
Fairing-catcher Mk4
With GO Ms. Chief’s August 10th arrival at Port Canaveral, SpaceX’s team of Florida-based recovery engineers and technicians will now be tasked with modifying the ship for Falcon fairing catching. SpaceX completed its first fairing recovery-focused modifications back in late 2017, likely producing what was the first version of fairing recovery tech (Mk1). The net proved to be far too small and was replaced in summer 2018 with a net and arms likely 4X larger (Mk2).
Roughly half a year and several missed catches after Mr. Steven’s Mk2 net was installed, the ship transited the Panama Canal and arrived at Port Canaveral in February 2019. Barely a week or two later, Mr. Steven suffered a failure at sea – well before a planned catch attempt – that saw the ship limp back to port missing the entirety of its net and two of four arms.
After another four months in port, SpaceX installed a third net and arms system on Mr. Steven, featuring distinct differences and apparent upgrades that likely make it Mk3. Shortly after installation and a quick renaming from Mr. Steven to GO Ms. Tree, Ms. Tree’s inaugural Mk3 recovery attempt culminated in SpaceX’s first and second successful fairing catches – back-to-back – on June 24th and August 6th.
Finally, this brings us to the blank slate that is GO Ms. Chief. Compared to Ms. Tree, both vessels are nearly identical: both are built by Gulf Craft, LLC, both are 205 ft x 34 ft (62m x 10m), both have decks rated for ~405 metric tons (900,000 lb), and have top speeds of 26-32 knots (30-37 mph, 50-60 km/h; fully-loaded vs. empty). The lone point of difference is power: Ms. Chief’s engines produce 500 more horsepower and its generators produce an additional 120 kW of power, respective improvements of 5% and 16% relative to Ms. Tree (Mr. Steven).
Despite both ships being nearly identical, SpaceX is unlikely to simply copy and paste Ms. Tree’s thus far successful arms and net, likely instead doing what the company is famous for and fabricating a new and improved variant of the fairing recovery mechanism. This would presumably translate to Mk4. Conveniently, SpaceX appears to be heading into a rare period of no launches, likely stretching almost three months from August 6th (AMOS-17) to late October.
If Mr. Steven and Ms. Tree’s transformations are anything to go by, that hefty chunk of time that should be more than sufficient to fully outfit Ms. Chief with a fresh fairing recovery mechanism, assuming SpaceX has been simultaneously fabricating the hardware in anticipation of Ms. Chief’s arrival.
For now, we’ll have to wait and see if SpaceX’s next launches – both believed to be 60-satellite Starlink missions – will mark the recovery debut of Ms. Chief, as well as the first attempted catch of both Falcon fairing halves. Additionally, following SpaceX’s second successful fairing half catch on August 6th, it’s possible that the company has two recovered halves capable of making a full, flight-proven fairing. Either way, a Starlink launch will likely support the flight-debut of a reused fairing and will almost certainly host the first attempted simultaneous recovery of both fairing halves.
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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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