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SpaceX ships Starship hardware from Florida to Texas to speed up production
After appearing unexpectedly at SpaceX’s Port Canaveral docks last month, several large pieces of Starship flight and manufacturing hardware were successfully shipped from Florida to Texas, arriving at the company’s Boca Chica build and launch site two weeks ago.
Previously discussed on Teslarati, the hardware transfer signals a significant shift in the development strategy for SpaceX’s next-generation Starship-Super Heavy launch vehicle. Most notably, SpaceX has chosen to prioritize Texas in the near term while the company’s Florida facilities instead aim for longer-tail milestones like the first Super Heavy-capable launch site and a new production facility located much closer to that launch site.
While the hardware SpaceX has sent over is relatively minor in the scope of producing a brand new Starship prototype, it will at least somewhat expedite the process thanks to the inclusion of what appears to be a completed propellant tank dome. Additionally, it’s possible that this December 8th hardware delivery will not be the last – a large amount of hardware remains at SpaceX’s Cocoa, Florida Starship production facility, including several ring sections and a nearly finished nose section, among a number of other parts.
As discussed last month, SpaceX has reportedly decided to more or less shutter its Cocoa facilities, transferring all permanent employees who wished to stay to Boca Chica, TX, Cape Canaveral, FL, or Hawthorne, CA facilities. SpaceX’s Starship presence in Florida is in no way done but it does sound like it’s in for at least several months of downtime.
“According to former Cocoa employee that spoke to reporter and channel creator Felix Schlang, SpaceX has reportedly transferred up to 80% of the Starship facility’s workforce to other groups in Florida and Texas. Instead of the friendly internal competition that pitted Cocoa against Boca Chica in the race to first Starship flight, SpaceX is temporarily slowing down its Florida build operations and will redirect as much of its workforce and resources as possible to Boca Chica.
Schlang’s source says that this will likely result in several months of relative downtime in Florida, while he was also told that Starship Mk2 and Mk4 are now effectively dead before arrival as a result of several challenging and reoccurring technical issues. Starship Mk2 likely shares some significant heritage with Starship Mk1, which lost its top during a pressure test. Roughly two-dozen steel Starship Mk4 rings may also be scrapped after SpaceX’s Florida team could not overcome a technical hurdle. Per the source, many of those single-weld steel rings were slightly different diameters, making it next to impossible to build a sound pressure vessel (i.e. Starship Mk4) with them.”
Teslarati.com — December 2nd, 2019
In line with that, SpaceX loaded transport ship GO Discovery with two large steel mounts and a finished tank dome originally believed to be intended for Starship Mk4 and Florida Starship production in general. Those parts arrived in Texas around five days later on December 8th and were rapidly moved from Port of Brownsville to SpaceX’s Boca Chica production facilities.
The ring-like steel structures will likely take the place of (or complement) the concrete structures SpaceX used to mount and assembly Starship Mk1. Likely significantly lighter, steel ring mounts allow far easier access underneath for technicians and engineers while also being much easier to transport in the event that SpaceX wants to reorganize its Starship ‘factory’.
Since arriving at the Boca Chica build site, SpaceX stored the assembly rings off to the side while the Starship Mk3 tank dome (i.e. bulkhead) was situated more centrally. So much is going on at SpaceX’s Boca Chica facilities that it’s no longer easy to determine what is being worked on just from observing, but it’s clear that the employees are working around the clock to prepare for Starship Mk3 assembly.
One or two new tank domes in various states of production are visible, contractors are constructing a warehouse-sized sprung structure (i.e. tent), and technicians are working to refine improved methods of forming the cylindrical steel rings that make up most of Starship. It can’t yet be said that Starship Mk3 has truly begun to take shape, but it’s clear that the goal is to ensure that the process is dramatically faster than it was with Starship Mk1, which took at least half a year to go from first ring stacking to pressure testing.
It’s safe to say that 2020 is going to be an incredibly busy and productive time for SpaceX’s next-generation rocket.
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Elon Musk
Elon Musk just upped his Tesla stake further fueling SpaceX merger conversation
Elon Musk just collected a $116 billion Tesla payday and the timing is eye-opening
Elon Musk quietly collected one of the largest single-transaction paydays in corporate history on Monday. A Form 4 filed with the SEC on June 17, 2026 disclosed that Musk exercised 303,960,630 Tesla stock options from his 2018 compensation package, with the transaction dated June 16. No shares were sold on the open market.
The numbers are straightforward but striking. Musk exercised the options at a split-adjusted strike price of $23.34, with Tesla closing at $404.66 that day, putting the spread at $381.32 per share and generating roughly $115.9 billion in paper gains in a single transaction. To cover the exercise cost, Tesla withheld 17,531,857 shares through a net share settlement, meaning Musk paid nothing out of pocket.
For perspective, in 2018, Elon Musk’s award was originally approved by Tesla shareholders on March 21, 2018, and structured entirely around performance milestones that many analysts at the time called unreachable. Every tranche eventually vested. The original grant covered 20,264,042 shares at $350.02, which after Tesla’s 5-for-1 split in 2020 and 3-for-1 split in 2022 adjusted to 303,960,630 shares at $23.34. A Delaware court rescinded the award in January 2024, ruling the board was conflicted. As Teslarati reported, Tesla shareholders voted to ratify the package anyway in June 2024 by a wide margin. The Delaware Supreme Court reversed the decision in December 2025, finding full cancellation too extreme, and Tesla’s board signed an Implementation Agreement on April 21, 2026 to formally deliver the shares.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
The timing and structure of the Form 4 filing carries more weight than a routine stock option exercise typically would. Musk exercised his 2018 Tesla award on June 16, a week into SpaceX completing its IPO and trading publicly, and giving SpaceX a public market valuation and share currency for the first time in the company’s history. A stock-for-stock merger between two companies requires the acquiring entity to have tradeable shares it can offer to the target’s shareholders, and SpaceX now has exactly that. At the same time, Musk just increased his direct Tesla voting power to approximately 20%, giving him greater influence over any shareholder vote that a merger would require. The restricted shares he received cannot be sold until 2033, which removes any near-term incentive to cash out and instead positions this stake as long-term structural collateral in a deal. Additionally, Musk’s two companies are already deeply intertwined through shared semiconductor fabrication at their joint TERAFAB facility in Austin, cross-company supply chain transactions, and Tesla’s $2 billion investment in xAI prior to the SpaceX-xAI merger.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has publicly placed the odds of a Tesla and SpaceX combination at 80% to 90% by early 2027. The Implementation Agreement that made Monday’s exercise possible was signed on April 21, 2026, roughly two months before the SpaceX IPO closed. That sequencing, building Musk’s Tesla ownership to its highest point ever immediately before SpaceX gains the public currency needed to acquire it, is either an extraordinary coincidence or a carefully staged foundation for the largest corporate merger in history.
Tesla Full Self-Driving is going to be getting a major parking upgrade. That’s according to CEO Elon Musk, who detailed a crafty new feature that will improve parking preferences, removing a layer of human input.
Musk said that upcoming releases of Full Self-Driving will “remember your parking preferences.” It will go to the location you prefer, based on where you’ve parked in the past, instead of taking the first spot available, which is where the suite is currently.
The CEO went on to explain that destination parking is “by far” the biggest reason for intervention during FSD operation. We’d have to believe this is true; many takeovers in my Model Y, which runs the latest version of FSD as it is in the Early Access Program, are due to parking because it chooses a spot I do not want to be in.
Many times, as soon as I enter a parking lot, I take over and park manually. I prefer to park away from the entrance of wherever I am, away from cars. Too many lessons learned over the years from people with free-swinging doors.
Upcoming releases of FSD will remember your parking preferences, so that the car goes to the right location at your home, office, school drop off, etc.
Destination parking is by far the biggest reason people now intervene with FSD. Critical safety interventions are extremely…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 17, 2026
We’d imagine these new updates will also solve things like parking orientation. Let’s say when you arrive at work, you always park in the third spot in the third row, and you prefer to back in. It seems as if Musk is implying that your car will now do this, learning from takeovers and aiming to eliminate the need to manually park whenever possible.
This is a major upgrade because parking is a major shortcoming of FSD currently. We’ve requested things like manual input of parking preferences, choosing to park far away, first available, or away from cars, for example.
This is a big reason Parking Preferences with Supervised FSD will be so valuable.
If possible, parking a little further away and being distant from people like this is worth it. https://t.co/1YqQLgnfTz pic.twitter.com/3Ac71KQiQ3
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 7, 2026
However, some have used the option of dropping a pin at the location you’d like to park at your destination. This has worked some of the time, but FSD will still choose to park in whatever it sees first.
Musk did not give a timetable for when the improvements would be released, but it is likely to come soon. Tesla has been releasing a new FSD version every few weeks, so we may not have to wait long to test it.
In a remarkable demonstration of how advanced vehicle technology can intersect with family care and rapid response, a Tesla Model Y equipped with Full Self-Driving (FSD) Supervised helped save a driver’s life during a severe heart attack. The incident, which occurred on November 15, 2025, highlights the life-saving potential of Tesla’s connected ecosystem.
John Brandt, 55, was driving his new 2026 Model Y Launch Edition on Interstate 20 from Atlanta toward Birmingham early that morning. He had recently received the FSD v14.1.3 update. Around 3:50 a.m., he began experiencing severe chest pain. Barely conscious and unable to safely control the vehicle, John managed to call his son, Jack Brandt.
FSD Supervised remained engaged, keeping the car steadily on course while John reached out for help.
As an authorized driver on his father’s Tesla account, Jack quickly sprang into action from his own phone. He located Tanner Medical Center in Carrollton, Georgia—a facility equipped for cardiac emergencies—via Google Maps and shared the destination directly through the Tesla app.
A Model Y driver started experiencing a medical emergency with chest pain mid-drive & called his son.
His son then remotely rerouted the car – which had FSD Supervised enabled – to the nearest hospital & let them know the vehicle was en route. ER staff were standing by on… pic.twitter.com/yi1tHISK9y
— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) June 16, 2026
The Model Y responded immediately, rerouting: it took the next exit, turned around on I-20, navigated local roads, and pulled directly up to the emergency room entrance. Jack also alerted hospital staff that a heart attack patient was en route in a Tesla.
Doctors diagnosed John with a massive STEMI heart attack, requiring immediate intervention on three blocked arteries. They later confirmed that without the swift reroute, John likely would not have survived—whether he had pulled over to wait for an ambulance or attempted to continue driving. He received life-saving treatment and is now recovering fully.
Tesla shared the story on X, including an interview video featuring John and Jack reflecting on the event. John described the terrifying onset of symptoms, while Jack detailed the ease of remote intervention thanks to the app’s features. Only authorized users with vehicle access can change navigation destinations, adding a layer of security and family coordination.
This case underscores Tesla’s emphasis on connectivity and supervised autonomy. Features like remote navigation allow loved ones to assist in real-time emergencies, while FSD handles complex driving tasks reliably. Tesla notes that FSD Supervised requires active driver supervision and is not fully autonomous; this was a specific incident, not a general emergency protocol.
The story has resonated widely, with many praising Tesla’s technology for bridging gaps in critical moments. Jack previously shared details on social media in February 2026, and Tesla’s recent post has amplified its reach. As vehicles become smarter and more connected, such integrations could redefine personal safety on the road—turning cars into proactive partners in health crises.
For Tesla owners, the incident serves as a powerful reminder to add trusted family members as authorized drivers and explore FSD capabilities. While no technology replaces professional medical care, this blend of AI-assisted driving and seamless app control proved invaluable. John’s survival stands as a testament to innovation that prioritizes human life.
Elon Musk just upped his Tesla stake further fueling SpaceX merger conversation
Tesla Full Self-Driving is getting a major parking upgrade, Elon Musk says
