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SpaceX’s NASA Starship contract safe for now as Blue Origin looks to Congress
Fresh off of a major contract loss during a competition to build NASA’s next crewed Moon lander, Blue Origin has begun aggressively lobbying Congress for the contract NASA didn’t give it.
Thankfully, albeit not at first, a modification has been made to an amendment first proposed by a Senator that has long pursued favorable treatment of Blue Origin that will prevent that legislation – if it passes – from unfairly interrupting the $2.9 billion contract NASA already awarded SpaceX. Announced on April 16th, that award came as a shock, effectively cementing SpaceX’s lunar Starship as both the cheapest and most technically sound proposal to return humanity to the Moon.
As such, although NASA made it clear that it would have selected two of the three competing proposals in a perfect scenario, Congress allocated just a quarter of the Human Landing System (HLS) funding NASA requested, forcing the agency between a rock and a hard place.
NASA repeatedly stated as much both before and after the decision was announced, effectively implying that the agency had learned its lesson with the Commercial Crew Program, in which it had selected two redundant providers – Boeing and SpaceX – only for Congress to systematically underfund the program for years. As a direct result of years of underfunding during an early and formative period, both providers suffered at least 2-3 years of delays, followed by another few years of more organic delays as development matured and new challenges were unsurprisingly uncovered.
Politically, NASA could never say that – effectively biting the hand that (under)feeds – out loud, but it was strongly implied in an official HLS source selection statement released to partially explain why it had chosen SpaceX and SpaceX alone. Almost instantly, both losing competitors – Blue Origin and Dynetics – filed protests with the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) filled with far more bizarre, rambling tangents than coherent legal arguments.
Unless GAO operates on a different standard than the court of law or uncovers something nefarious behind closed doors, a close reading of both partially redacted protests does not bode well for either document’s ability to sway the office’s opinion. Almost as if Blue Origin itself is aware of just how frivolous its protest really is, the company – seemingly backed by partners Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Leidos – wasted no time lobbying Senator Maria Cantwell for an alternate avenue to get what it wants and the government money founder Jeff Bezos feels entitled to.
Cantwell represents Washington State, where both Amazon and Blue Origin are headquartered, and has frequently spoken out in support of – or personally introduced – legislation that would specifically favor Bezos’ space company. On May 12th, Cantwell introduced an amendment that would purportedly “maintain competitiveness” by forcing NASA to select a second HLS winner in addition to SpaceX. Without irony, the authorization bill also demanded that NASA make that decision within a mere 30 days.
Under those conditions, Congress would authorize $10 billion for NASA to develop and demonstrate two landers with an uncrewed and crewed Moon landing each – the original plan. Insultingly, Cantwell tacked that amendment onto an authorization bill, meaning that even if Congress were to pass the bill and the President were to sign it into law, Congress would still have to actually allocate that $10 billion in the form of a more than 10% boost to NASA’s annual budget. Historically, even if Congress were to defy all recent precedent and significantly boost NASA’s 2022 budget, there is no guarantee that that raise would be upheld for four or more years, which it would need to be for the authorization bill to be anything more than a hollow promise.
More recently, a clause was thankfully added clarifying that NASA is not allowed to “modify, terminate, or rescind” SpaceX’s HLS contract to comply with the amendment. Additionally, while still amounting to a legal gun to NASA’s head to force it to into a contract it knows it cant afford, the modification gives NASA 60 days to award a second lander contract. Based on the agency’s own selection statement, Blue Origin’s National Team would almost certainly be the recipient in the event that the bill becomes law, forcing NASA to commit more than $9 billion – instead of $2.9 billion – to the next stage of HLS development with no guarantee that its budget will be raised accordingly.
In the meantime, GAO still has to complete its reviews of Blue Origin and Dynetic’s protests and the White House has to submit its FY2022 budget request and consider adding NASA funding to its proposed jobs and infrastructure package.
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SpaceX is following in Tesla’s footsteps in a way nobody expected
In the span of just months in early 2026, SpaceX has transformed itself into one of the world’s most ambitious AI companies. The catalyst: its February acquisition of xAI.
When Elon Musk founded Tesla in 2003, it was a plucky electric car startup betting everything on lithium-ion batteries and a niche luxury Roadster.
Two decades later, Tesla is far more than a car company. Its valuation increasingly hinges on Full Self-Driving software, the Optimus humanoid robot, the Robotaxi program, and the Dojo supercomputer cluster purpose-built for AI training.
Musk has repeatedly described Tesla as an AI and robotics company that happens to sell vehicles. The cars, in this view, are merely the first scalable platform for real-world AI.
Now, SpaceX is tracing an eerily similar path, only faster and in a direction almost no one anticipated. Founded in 2002 to make spaceflight routine and eventually multiplanetary, SpaceX spent its first two decades perfecting reusable rockets, landing Falcon 9 boosters, and building the Starlink megaconstellation.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
It was an engineering and manufacturing powerhouse, not a software play. Yet, in the span of just months in early 2026, SpaceX has transformed itself into one of the world’s most ambitious AI companies. The catalyst: its February acquisition of xAI.
The xAI deal, announced on February 2, was structured as an all-stock transaction that valued the combined entity at roughly $1.25 trillion—SpaceX at $1 trillion and xAI at $250 billion. In a memo to employees, Musk framed the merger as the creation of “the most ambitious, vertically-integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth.”
The new SpaceX now owns Grok, the large language model family that powers the chatbot of the same name, along with xAI’s massive training infrastructure. More importantly, it has a declared mission to move AI compute off-planet.
Earth-based data centers are hitting hard limits on power, cooling, and land. Musk’s solution is orbital data centers, or constellations of solar-powered satellites that act as supercomputers in the sky.
SpaceX has already asked regulators for permission to launch up to one million such satellites. Starship, the company’s fully reusable heavy-lift vehicle, is the only rocket capable of delivering the necessary mass at the required cadence.
Each orbital node would enjoy near-constant sunlight, vast radiator surfaces for passive cooling, and zero terrestrial real-estate costs. Musk has predicted that within two to three years, space-based AI inference and training could become cheaper than anything possible on the ground.
This is not a side project; it is the strategic centerpiece Musk has envisioned for SpaceX. Starlink already provides the global low-latency backbone; next-generation V3 satellites will carry onboard AI accelerators. Rockets deliver the hardware, while AI optimizes every aspect of launch, landing, and constellation management.
The feedback loop is self-reinforcing, too. Better AI makes better rockets, which launch more AI infrastructure.
Just yesterday, on April 21, SpaceX doubled down.
It secured an option to acquire Cursor—the fast-growing AI coding tool beloved by software engineers—for $60 billion later this year, or pay a $10 billion partnership fee if the full deal does not close.
Cursor’s models already help engineers write code at superhuman speed. Pairing that technology with SpaceX’s Colossus-scale training clusters (the same ones powering Grok) positions the company to dominate AI developer tools, much as Tesla dominates autonomous driving software.
Why SpaceX just made a $60 billion bet on AI coding ahead of historic IPO
The parallels with Tesla are striking. Both companies began in a single, capital-intensive sector: Tesla with EVs, SpaceX with launch vehicles. Both used early hardware success to fund AI at scale. Tesla’s Dojo supercomputers train neural nets on billions of miles of real-world driving data; SpaceX now trains on telemetry from thousands of orbital assets and re-entries.
Tesla’s FSD chip runs inference on cars; SpaceX’s future satellites will run inference in orbit.
Tesla’s Optimus robot will work in factories; SpaceX envisions lunar factories manufacturing more AI satellites, eventually using electromagnetic mass drivers to fling them into deep space.
Critics once dismissed Musk’s multi-company empire as unfocused. The 2026 moves reveal the opposite: deliberate convergence.
SpaceX is no longer merely a rocket company that sells internet from space. It is an AI company whose competitive moat is literal orbital infrastructure and the only vehicle that can service it at scale. The forthcoming IPO, expected later this year, will almost certainly be pitched not as a space play but as the purest bet on AI infrastructure the public market has ever seen.
Whether the orbital data-center vision survives regulatory scrutiny, astronomical concerns about light pollution, or the sheer engineering challenge remains to be seen.
Yet the strategic direction is unmistakable. Just as Tesla proved that software and AI could redefine the century-old automobile, SpaceX is proving that rockets are merely the delivery mechanism for the next great computing platform—one that floats above the clouds, powered by the sun, and limited only by the physics of orbit.
In that unexpected sense, history is repeating. Tesla stopped being “just a car company” years ago. SpaceX has now stopped being “just a rocket company.” Both are becoming something far larger: AI powerhouses with hardware moats so deep that competitors will need their own reusable megaconstellations to keep up.
The age of terrestrial AI is ending. The age of space-based AI is beginning—and SpaceX is building the launchpad.
Elon Musk
Tesla Earnings: financial expectations and what we should to hear about
In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings calls are usually a great time to get some clarification on the company’s outlook for its current and future projects.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) will report its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 this evening after the market closes, and analysts have already put out their expectations from a financial standpoint for the company’s first three months of the year.
Additionally, there will be plenty of things that will be discussed, including the recent expansion of the Robotaxi program, the Roadster unveiling, and Full Self-Driving (Supervised) approvals across the globe.
Financial Expectations
Wall Street consensus expectations put Tesla’s Earnings Per Share (EPS) at $0.36, while revenues are expected to come in around $22.35 billion.
This would compare to an EPS of $0.27 and $19.34 billion compared to Tesla’s Q1 2025. Last quarter, EPS came in at $0.50 on $29.4 billion of revenue.
Tesla beat analyst expectations last quarter, but the next trading day, the stock fell nearly 3.5 percent. We never quite can gauge how the market will respond to Tesla’s earnings; we’ve seen shares rise on a miss and fall on a beat.
It really goes on the news, and investor consensus, it seems.
What to Expect
In terms of discussions, Tesla earnings calls are usually a great time to get some clarification on the company’s outlook for its current and future projects. Right now, the big focus of investors is the Robotaxi program, the Roadster unveiling, and what the outlook for Full Self-Driving’s expansion throughout Europe and the rest of the world looks like.
Robotaxi
Tesla just recently expanded its unsupervised Robotaxi program to Dallas and Houston, joining Austin as the first cities in the U.S. to have access to the company’s ride-hailing suite.
Tesla expands Unsupervised Robotaxi service to two new cities
Some saw this move as a quick effort to turn attention away from a delivery miss and an anticipated miss on earnings. However, we’ve seen Tesla be more than deliberate with its expansion of the Robotaxi suite, so it’s hard to believe the company would make this move if it were not truly ready to do so.
The company is also working to expand its U.S. ride-hailing service outside of Texas and California, and recently filed paperwork to build a Robotaxi-exclusive Supercharger stall.
Expansion is planned for Florida, Nevada, and Arizona at some point this year, with more states to follow.
Roadster Unveiling
The Roadster unveiling was slated for April 1, and then pushed back (once again) to “probably late April,” according to Elon Musk.
It does not appear that the Roadster unveiling will happen within that time frame, at least not to our knowledge. Nobody has received media or press invites for a Roadster unveiling, and given the lofty expectations set for the vehicle by Musk and Co., it seems like something they’d want to show off to the public.
The Roadster has become a truly frustrating project for Tesla and its fans; evidently, there is something that is not up to the expectations Musk and others have. Meanwhile, fans are essentially waiting for something that is six years late.
At this point, also given the company’s focus on autonomy, it almost seems more worth it to just cancel it, remove any and all timelines and expectations, and surprise people with something crazy down the line, maybe in two or three years. There should be no talk of it.
Full Self-Driving Global Expansion
We expect Musk and Co. to shed some details on where it stands with other European government bodies, as it recently was able to roll out FSD (Supervised) to customers in the Netherlands.
Spain is also working with Tesla to assess FSD’s viability as a publicly available option for owners.
With that being said, there should be some additional information for investors as they listen to the call; no talk of it would be a pretty big letdown.
Optimus
There will likely be a date set for the Gen 3 Optimus unveiling, and we’re hopeful Tesla can keep that date set in stone and meet it. Not reaching timelines is a relatively minor issue, but a company can only do this for so long before its fans and investors start to lose trust and disregard any talk about dates.
It seems this is happening already.
Optimus has been pegged as Tesla’s big money maker for the future. The goals and expectations are high, but it is a privilege to have that sort of pressure when investors know the company’s capability.
News
Tesla just unlocked sales to 50,000+ government agencies
It marks a significant step in expanding Tesla’s presence in the public sector, where procurement processes have traditionally slowed electric vehicle adoption.
Tesla just unlocked sales to over 50,000 government agencies by entering a new agreement with Sourcewell, a purchasing cooperative.
Tesla entered a new master purchasing agreement with Sourcewell, the largest government purchasing cooperative in the U.S. This will enable streamlined sales of its EVs to more than 50,000 U.S. public entities. Tesla entered Designated Contract 0813525-TES, and the agreement covers Model 3, Model Y, and Cybertruck, and potentially other vehicles the company could release.
It marks a significant step in expanding Tesla’s presence in the public sector, where procurement processes have traditionally slowed electric vehicle adoption.
The deal allows eligible agencies, including cities, school districts, state governments, and higher-education institutions, to purchase Tesla vehicles directly through Sourcewell without conducting their own lengthy competitive bidding or request-for-proposal (RFP) processes.
Pricing is pre-negotiated and capped, providing transparency and predictability. Agencies simply register for a Sourcewell account online or by phone and place orders under the existing contract. This cooperative model aggregates demand across thousands of members, reducing administrative costs and time while ensuring compliance with public procurement rules.
For Tesla, the agreement removes major barriers to government fleet sales. Public-sector procurement cycles often stretch 12 to 18 months due to bidding requirements and committee reviews.
Tesla buyers in the U.S. military can get $1,000 off Cybertruck purchases
By securing the master contract, Tesla gains immediate, simplified access to a massive customer base that previously faced friction in adopting EVs. The company highlighted in its announcement that the partnership will help these 50,000-plus agencies “save thousands of $$$ in operating costs for their vehicle fleet over time” through lower maintenance, energy efficiency, and the elimination of tailpipe emissions.
The initial four-year term runs through November 13, 2029, with options for up to three one-year extensions, offering long-term stability for both parties.
Sourcewell’s role is central to execution. As a cooperative purchasing organization, it negotiates and manages vendor contracts on behalf of its members, then makes them available nationwide. Participating entities contact Tesla’s dedicated fleet team or Sourcewell representatives to complete purchases, bypassing redundant paperwork.
This structure accelerates fleet electrification while maintaining fiscal accountability—agencies receive pre-vetted pricing and terms without reinventing the wheel for each vehicle order.
The partnership positions Tesla to capture a larger share of the public fleet market, where total cost of ownership often favors electric vehicles once procurement hurdles are removed.
For government buyers, it translates to faster deployment of sustainable fleets, reduced long-term expenses, and alignment with environmental mandates. As more agencies transition, the contract could contribute to broader EV infrastructure growth and taxpayer savings across the country.
SpaceX is following in Tesla’s footsteps in a way nobody expected
Tesla Earnings: financial expectations and what we should to hear about
