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SpaceX finishes stacking new Starship for the first time in six months
For the first time in more than half a year, SpaceX has stacked a new Starship prototype to its full height, hopefully marking the end of a period of relatively slow progress.
That period began when Starship S20 was stacked to its full height in early August 2021. Until very recently, Ship 20 was said and expected to be the prototype assigned to Starship’s first orbital test flight, making it exceptionally important. In an unusual change in attitude, SpaceX may have felt the same, which may explain why Starship S20’s first static fire test took place more than two months after it first left the factory. A year prior, Starships SN9, SN10, SN11, and SN15 all completed proof testing a matter of weeks after rollout.
That sudden change of pace relative to past development has meant that Ship 20 is the only Starship prototype SpaceX has tested since May 2021 and the only Starship to graduate from final assembly to testing in the last six months. In that period, Ship 20 has completed a few major cryogenic proof tests and four static fires – two of which ignited all six Raptor engines. While Ship 20’s six-engine tests were unprecedented and marked a major program milestone, SpaceX once static-fired Starship SN9 three times in one day in January 2021.
However, that period of sluggish prototype testing may finally be coming to an end. In August 2021, when SpaceX stacked Starship S20 and Super Heavy B4 for the first time, the general assumption was that the seemingly imminent march towards orbital flight testing would be similar to SpaceX’s attempts to land a Starship from medium altitude between December 2020 and May 2021 – lots of prototypes in flow and multiple back-to-back tests and launches, in other words. That was not the case.
Starship S21, for example, began final assembly in mid-October 2021 and its tank section and nose section were both fully stacked less than a month later. However, rather than stack them into a second complete ship, SpaceX has left those separate assemblies sitting around Starbase for the last three months. Simultaneously, while Ship 21’s apparent limbo seemed to imply that SpaceX was implementing another block upgrade and moving on to newer prototypes, the company actually started stacking Starship S22 about a week after S21’s separate sections were completed. Only three months later have SpaceX’s plans for those three sections finally become clear.
On February 14th, 2022, Ship 22’s tank section followed Ship 21’s nose section into Starbase’s high bay assembly facility, where they were quickly stacked to form a full Starship prototype the same day. This raises the question: why?
Given that Starship S20 effectively completed qualification testing with three successful static fires in December 2021 and a fourth in early January 2022 and has been seemingly ready to fly ever since, its Super Heavy booster readiness – not ship readiness – that appears to be holding SpaceX back. Perhaps because of pad readiness issues, SpaceX has yet to perform a single Super Heavy static fire test – or even a less risky wet dress rehearsal – at the orbital launch site. As such, it’s hard to say why SpaceX has suddenly decided to finish Ship 22 instead of focusing on a newer version of Starship (S24) and Super Heavy (B7) – both of which are expected to debut upgrades.
It’s possible that Ship 22 is being completed merely as practice for the Starbase workforce, who have gone half a year without fully assembling another ship prototype, but then there would have been no reason not to install Ship 21’s nose on Ship 21’s tank section instead of withholding it for Ship 22. Ship 22 could also be a replacement for Ship 21 if appearances are misleading and SpaceX uncovered issues with the older prototype during testing but again, no booster is ready to launch either ship.
Regardless of the outcome or purpose of Ship 22, seeing any new Starship prototype completed is an exciting and interesting change of pace after half a year of following the windy paths of Ship 20, Booster 5, and Ship 21 to their uncertain goals.
Elon Musk
SpaceX President to gift Trump Accounts her SpaceX stock
Gwynne Shotwell’s 2 million SpaceX shares are headed to children’s Trump Accounts starting this December.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Friday that more than 2 million SpaceX shares belonging to her and her husband, Robert, will be distributed to children’s Trump Accounts in December, turning a pledge she made over the summer into an actual transfer. “Robert and I are thrilled that our gift of over 2 million shares of SpaceX stock will be distributed to children’s Trump accounts in December!” Shotwell wrote on X, adding that the shares are “transferring to escrow as we speak.”
The first round goes to children aged 11 to 17 who live in ZIP codes where the median family income is $57,000 or less, along with kids in ZIP codes with too few residents for the Census to report that figure. Shotwell said those families should receive a notice by Monday, Reuters reported.
A second gift is expected to be finalized in the next few weeks. That round will cover eligible children in military families serving overseas, children in foster care, and more kids in Texas counties near the Shotwells’ home where median family income is $90,000 or less. Elon Musk replied to the announcement with “Cool” and a heart emoji.
Shotwell first announced the donation on July 6, less than a month after SpaceX priced its record IPO at $135 per share on the Nasdaq. IPO filings showed Shotwell owned about 12.6 million SpaceX shares, Quartz reported at the time, which makes the gift roughly one sixth of her stake. At the roughly $146 per share used to value Musk’s own pledge earlier this month, 2 million shares are worth about $290 million.
How the stock would actually reach the accounts had been an open question since July. Treasury guidance acknowledged that stock donations could flow into Trump Accounts, but it did not explain the mechanics for a program whose contributions default into an S&P 500 index fund. Shotwell thanked the Treasury, the IRS, the Dell Foundation, Greater Horizons, Invest America and the law firms Morgan Lewis and Gibson Dunn for “working over the past few months to make this happen.”
The transfer also works as a dry run for a far larger gift. On October 19, Musk said he would give one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America next year and called it “the first of many.” With roughly 72 million children in the country, that pledge is worth about $10.5 billion. President Donald Trump thanked Musk the same day and said the shares would go through Trump Accounts, though neither SpaceX nor the Treasury has published how or when that distribution will happen.
Shotwell’s recipients also fill a gap in the program itself. Trump Accounts launched on July 4, and the $1,000 Treasury deposit only goes to babies born between 2025 and 2028. Teenagers aged 11 to 17 receive no government seed money, so for many of the families getting a notice on Monday, SpaceX stock will be the first asset in the account. The accounts convert into retirement accounts when the child turns 18.
Tesla Full Self-Driving is now the centerpiece of the company’s newly revised Referral Program, which launched on October 29.
Instead of referring people to purchase vehicles and the referrer receiving $250 in Tesla Credit, the new program now incentivizes Full Self-Driving subscriptions.
If a Tesla owner is on an FSD trial and uses a referral code to subscribe to Full Self-Driving, the person whose Referral Link was used will receive one month of FSD (Supervised). Their code can be utilized 12 times per year, with January 1 marking the reset date.
Realistically, this means that if your Referral Code is used by 12 Tesla owners on an FSD trial, you will receive a full year of FSD for free.
🚨 Here is Tesla’s new Referral Program for Full Self-Driving (Supervised):
When someone subscribes to FSD using your link, you’ll get a month free. Up to a year of FSD is available to you for free!
If you’d like to use my link: https://t.co/g00IX9OCE3 https://t.co/GFBzEO2jjS
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 30, 2026
The previous program made it pretty difficult to get referrals; buying a vehicle is obviously a much larger financial strain than subscribing to Full Self-Driving for a month.
Of course, the previous Referral Program also offered a tangible benefit: $250 in credits you could use on Service, Supercharging, or anything in the Tesla Shop. It truly could pay for someone’s travel for a year. It recently bought me a new backpack and a T-shirt.
However, this new program is much more attainable for those who do not have a massive online presence of a slew of friends in the Tesla community who will use the code and max out subscriptions for vehicle purchases.
Woke up to maxed out Referrals! Thank you guys, that’s awesome!
Share your referral link below so others can use it! https://t.co/kesbwTcoTV
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 30, 2026
The Full Self-Driving suite will now be the keystone of the Referral Program, which makes it more inclusive and more fun for everyone with an awesome benefit.
It also gives the impression that Tesla is truly focused on FSD subscriptions, something that saw a tremendous increase in volume in Q3, as 75 percent of deliveries for the quarter came with an FSD subscription attached.
Full Self-Driving data is so instrumental to the suite’s improvement that this kind of program benefits Tesla as much as it does the consumer.
Elon Musk
Tesla made napping in a Robotaxi easier with its latest update
Tesla’s quiet mode reaches Model Y Robotaxis, blacking out the screen for riders wanting rest.
Tesla’s quiet mode, the setting that blacks out the screen for riders who want to rest, has moved beyond the Cybercab. A video posted Thursday by Spencer (@scotsrule08) shows the feature running in a Model Y Robotaxi on a night ride that appears to be in Dallas.
New quiet mode now on @Robotaxi https://t.co/2cM2eM9NeN — Spencer (@scotsrule08) October 29, 2026
The rider taps a small crescent moon icon in the bottom right corner of the map screen. The map, media player, app shortcuts and Grok prompt disappear, leaving a dark display with “Arriving soon,” the destination and a line reading “Tap display to exit quiet mode.” Controls a passenger may still need, including Pull Over, cabin temperature, volume and Support, stay visible. One tap anywhere brings the full map back.
Quiet mode first showed up in the Cybercab last week, which Teslarati reported alongside a new rear camera view. Tesla has been trimming cabin noise in other ways too. On October 25, Spencer reported that Robotaxi turn signals now chime for the first four blinks and then go silent. Tesla has not published release notes for either change.
Elon Musk has been pitching this use for more than a decade. In October 2014, he said that “maybe five or six years from now I think we’ll be able to achieve true autonomous driving where you could literally get in the car, go to sleep and wake up at your destination,”
By 2017 he was setting a higher bar. Speaking at TED, Musk said the hard part was not making self-driving work 99.9 percent of the time, “because, like, if a car crashes one in a thousand times, then you’re probably still not going to be comfortable falling asleep. You shouldn’t be, certainly.”
Owners asked for something similar in their own cars. In December 2019, a Tesla owner requested a Nap Mode that would keep the climate running and wake the occupant with an alarm, and Musk answered “Ok,” as Teslarati covered at the time.
The line returned when the Cybercab was unveiled at the We, Robot event in October 2024. “We’ll move from supervised Full Self-Driving to unsupervised Full Self-Driving, where you can fall asleep and wake up at your destination,” Musk said. On Tesla’s first quarter earnings call in April 2025, he called it the deciding measure: “The acid test is, can you go to sleep in your car and wake up in your destination and I’m confident that will be available in many cities in the US by the end of this year,”
Tesla has run driverless Model Y rides in Dallas and Houston since April, so a passenger dozing off on the way home is now a realistic use of the button. Tesla is also offering new riders a free first trip in both cities, according to an in-app screen shared by tracker Ethan McKanna, and said on its third quarter call that Cybercab rides would launch in Dallas next month.
SpaceX President to gift Trump Accounts her SpaceX stock
Tesla Full Self-Driving becomes main pillar of new Referral Program
