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[Update: fully stacked] SpaceX speeds up work on Starship with “hundreds” of upgrades
Update: Less than 24 hours after publishing, SpaceX began installing Starship SN15’s nose section, stacking the significantly upgraded rocket to its full 50m (~165 ft) height.
Excluding the installation of a few minor ‘aerocover’ surfaces used to smooth out the interface between Starship’s hull and four flaps, SN15 will effectively be complete and ready to roll to the launch pad as soon as its nose and tank sections have been welded together. Historically, for SN8-SN11, that process – including visual and radiographic (x-ray) inspections for quality assurance – has taken as few as one or two days, meaning that SN15 could technically be ready to roll out as early as Monday, April 4th.
Of note, SpaceX has already scheduled a road closure from 7am to noon CDT (UTC-5) on Monday – likely to transport a crane to the pad but potentially enough to get both a crane and SN15 to the launch site. Simultaneously, an upgraded or modified hydraulic ram – used to simulate the thrust of three Raptors – was already moved to the pad and installed on one of two suborbital launch mounts on Saturday, April 3rd, meaning that the pad will likely be ready for SN15’s installation tomorrow.
If SpaceX manages to complete both transport tasks on Monday, odds are very good that SN15 will be able to get through one or several qualification tests – including an ambient-temperature pressure test, cryogenic proof, wet dress rehearsal, and static fire – by the end of the week. Stay tuned for updates!
Beginning almost immediately after Starship SN11’s midair explosion earlier this week, SpaceX has accelerated work on a new Starship prototype upgraded with “hundreds of improvements.”
In November 2020, Musk first revealed plans to implement “major [Starship] upgrades” as early as prototype SN15, though the improvements involved in the first apparent Starship ‘block’ change were never detailed. On 30 March 2021, the same day as Starship SN11’s foggy, ill-fated launch debut, Musk confirmed that the SN15+ block upgrade would feature “hundreds of design improvements [to] structures, avionics, software, and [Raptor engines].”
Around the same time, after more than two months of little to not visible activity, work on Starship SN15 rapidly restarted in an apparent bid to achieve Musk’s stated goal of rolling the rocket to the launch pad “in a few days.”
Possibly due to a significant shift in focus from Starship mass-production to the construction of Boca Chica’s first orbital-class launch pad and flight tests of prototypes SN8 through SN11, Starship SN15 has been in the stacking and assembly phase since the turn of the new year. About a month ago, in early March, the rocket’s tank section was stacked to its full height and has been making slow progress in the weeks since – clearly not a pressing priority.
The day after SN11 exploded, SpaceX stacked the last two pieces of Starship SN11’s nose and joined their plumbing and avionics runs, more or less completing the upper third of the prototype. Both nosecone flaps were installed a few days prior. On the same day, March 31st, SpaceX rolled Starship SN15’s tank section (the bottom two-thirds of the rocket) out of Boca Chica’s ‘mid bay’ assembly building and installed both after flaps before moving the vehicle into the ‘high bay.’
With those steps complete, Starship SN15 should be just a few days away from nose installation, at which point it will need just a few more days of work before SpaceX will be ready to install the rocket on a transporter and roll it to the launch pad. It’s not implausible that that move will happen as early as next week, perhaps even leaving enough time for an acceptance test or two before the weekend.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
Elon Musk’s social media platform X will adopt a Tesla-esque approach to software updates for its algorithm.
The initiative seems designed to accelerate updates to the social media platform, while maintaining maximum transparency.
X’s updates to its updates
As per Musk in a post on X, the social media company will be making a new algorithm to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users. These updates would then be repeated every four weeks.
“We will make the new 𝕏 algorithm, including all code used to determine what organic and advertising posts are recommended to users, open source in 7 days. This will be repeated every 4 weeks, with comprehensive developer notes, to help you understand what changed,” Musk wrote in his post.
The initiative somewhat mirrors Tesla’s over-the-air update model, where vehicle software is regularly refined and pushed to users with detailed release notes. This should allow users to better understand the details of X’s every update and foster a healthy feedback loop for the social media platform.
xAI and X
X, formerly Twitter, has been acquired by Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI last year. Since then, xAI has seen a rapid rise in valuation. Following the company’s the company’s upsized $20 billion Series E funding round, estimates now suggest that xAI is worth tens about $230 to $235 billion. That’s several times larger than Tesla when Elon Musk received his controversial 2018 CEO Performance Award.
As per xAI, 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.
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Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) system has been named the best driver-assistance technology on the market, earning top honors at the 2026 MotorTrend Best Tech Awards.
The decision marks a notable reversal for the publication from prior years, with judges citing major real-world improvements that pushed Tesla’s latest FSD software ahead of every competing ADAS system. And it wasn’t even close.
MotorTrend reverses course
MotorTrend awarded Tesla FSD (Supervised) its 2026 Best Tech Driver Assistance title after extensive testing of the latest v14 software. The publication acknowledged that it had previously criticized earlier versions of FSD for erratic behavior and near-miss incidents, ultimately favoring rivals such as GM’s Super Cruise in earlier evaluations.
According to MotorTrend, the newest iteration of FSD resolved many of those shortcomings. Testers said v14 showed far smoother behavior in complex urban scenarios, including unprotected left turns, traffic circles, emergency vehicles, and dense city streets. While the system still requires constant driver supervision, judges concluded that no other advanced driver-assistance system currently matches its breadth of capability.
Unlike rival systems that rely on combinations of cameras, radar, lidar, and mapped highways, Tesla’s FSD operates using a camera-only approach and is capable of driving on city streets, rural roads, and freeways. MotorTrend stated that pure utility, the ability to handle nearly all road types, ultimately separated FSD from competitors like Ford BlueCruise, GM Super Cruise, and BMW’s Highway Assistant.
High cost and high capability
MotorTrend also addressed FSD’s pricing, which remains significantly higher than rival systems. Tesla currently charges $8,000 for a one-time purchase or $99 per month for a subscription, compared with far lower upfront and subscription costs from other automakers. The publication noted that the premium is justified given FSD’s unmatched scope and continuous software evolution.
Safety remained a central focus of the evaluation. While testers reported collision-free operation over thousands of miles, they noted ongoing concerns around FSD’s configurable driving modes, including options that allow aggressive driving and speeds beyond posted limits. MotorTrend emphasized that, like all Level 2 systems, FSD still depends on a fully attentive human driver at all times.
Despite those caveats, the publication concluded that Tesla’s rapid software progress fundamentally reshaped the competitive landscape. For drivers seeking the most capable hands-on driver-assistance system available today, MotorTrend concluded Tesla FSD (Supervised) now stands alone at the top.
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Elon Musk’s Grokipedia surges to 5.6M articles, almost 79% of English Wikipedia
The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago.
Elon Musk’s Grokipedia has grown to an impressive 5,615,201 articles as of today, closing in on 79% of the English Wikipedia’s current total of 7,119,376 articles.
The explosive growth marks a major milestone for the AI-powered online encyclopedia, which was launched by Elon Musk’s xAI just months ago. Needless to say, it would only be a matter of time before Grokipedia exceeds English Wikipedia in sheer volume.
Grokipedia’s rapid growth
xAI’s vision for Grokipedia emphasizes neutrality, while Grok’s reasoning capabilities allow for fast drafting and fact-checking. When Elon Musk announced the initiative in late September 2025, he noted that Grokipedia would be an improvement to Wikipedia because it would be designed to avoid bias.
At the time, Musk noted that Grokipedia “is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.”
Grokipedia was launched in late October, and while xAI was careful to list it only as Version 0.1 at the time, the online encyclopedia immediately earned praise. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger highlighted the project’s innovative approach, noting how it leverages AI to fill knowledge gaps and enable rapid updates. Netizens also observed how Grokipedia tends to present articles in a more objective manner compared to Wikipedia, which is edited by humans.
Elon Musk’s ambitious plans
With 5,615,201 total articles, Grokipedia has now grown to almost 79% of English Wikipedia’s article base. This is incredibly quick, though Grokipedia remains text-only for now. xAI, for its part, has now updated the online encyclopedia’s iteration to v0.2.
Elon Musk has shared bold ideas for Grokipedia, including sending a record of the entire knowledge base to space as part of xAI’s mission to preserve and expand human understanding. At some point, Musk stated that Grokipedia will be renamed to Encyclopedia Galactica, and it will be sent to the cosmos.
“When Grokipedia is good enough (long way to go), we will change the name to Encyclopedia Galactica. It will be an open source distillation of all knowledge, including audio, images and video. Join xAI to help build the sci-fi version of the Library of Alexandria!” Musk wrote, adding in a later post that “Copies will be etched in stone and sent to the Moon, Mars and beyond. This time, it will not be lost.”
Elon Musk’s X will start using a Tesla-like software update strategy
Tesla FSD Supervised wins MotorTrend’s Best Driver Assistance Award
