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SpaceX Starlink users could see “much higher download speeds” amid upgrades
CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX’s thousands of Starlink users could see “much higher download speeds” as the company begins implementing “system upgrades.”
Just the latest of the many ways that SpaceX’s first consumer-facing product continues to leapfrog stalwart, monopolistic internet service providers (ISPs) around the world, the move is a sign that Starlink customers may see the dividends of infrastructure improvements. For a huge portion of fixed internet service customers around the world, it’s more likely than not that local ISPs have more or less secured a monopoly of sorts, have enough control over regulatory apparatuses to kill competition in the cradle, and have next to no interest in investing profits back into their infrastructure or improving the experience for their customers.
Without strong, independent competition (or the imminent threat of it), consumers have no choice but to settle and ISPs use that fulcrum to their full advantage, instituting arbitrary data caps, raising prices, adding hidden service fees, investing only the bare minimum into infrastructure maintenance and upgrades, and offering – at best – mediocre customer support. With Starlink, the promise is virtually the opposite: it might cost a bit more, the price of access may be substantially higher, and beta internet service might be intermittent and finicky, but SpaceX’s singular directive is to improve the experience, expand service, and cut customer-facing costs as much as possible.
Of course, for the time being, SpaceX’s Starlink network is still firmly in the ‘beta’ phase of development, meaning that users will likely experience frequent outages, downtime, slow speeds, and high latency. That’s especially true as SpaceX works to substantially expand its customer base – likely happening already after the company opened (pre)orders to a large portion of the global populace.
It should go without saying that SpaceX’s expertise lies in aerospace engineering and development, not in high-volume network design and management. As such, it’s safe to assume that there will be many instances of teething problems as Starlink’s user base gradually expands, significantly increasing the strain on the network at peak hours.
At the moment, with proper setup, Starlink regularly offers beta users minimum speeds of 30-50 megabits per second (Mbps) and latency around 30-50 ms – not great mass-market fiber or even copper but far superior or comparable to most existing satellite, cellular, or DSL solutions. For some, that improves to download speeds of 100-150 Mbps or more and latency mostly indistinguishable from a wired connection. A few minutes of cumulative downtime is also fairly normal, though other users have recently seen download and upload speeds trending downwards while uptime and outages substantially improved. Notably, Starlink also remains free of data caps and intentional throttling, though that could be subject to change.
Musk also noted that Starlink service availability could spread to California’s Bay Area region by mid-2021, though he cautioned – as usual – that the service isn’t really meant for those with decent consumer connections already available – monopolistic provider or not. SpaceX was forced to pause Starlink launches after a rocket landing failure on February 15th but the company should be back in action as early as February 28th, hoping to pick up the pace and expand the constellation’s reach to near-global coverage before the end of the year.
Elon Musk
Tesla kicks Robotaxi geofence expansion into high gear in Austin
Tesla has nearly doubled its Robotaxi geofence in Austin for the second time less than two months after it initially launched.

Tesla has kicked the expansion of its Robotaxi geofence in Austin, Texas, into high gear, as it grew the service area once again early Sunday morning.
Tesla launched its Robotaxi platform in Austin on June 22, and less than a month later, it was able to expand it. After its first expansion, Tesla had a larger geofence than Waymo, which launched its driverless ride-hailing service to the public in Austin in March. Waymo expanded the week after Tesla’s first augmentation.
Waymo responds to Tesla’s Robotaxi expansion in Austin with bold statement
Now, Tesla has answered Waymo once again by developing its service area in Austin to an even larger size. We expected it, as just two weeks ago, CEO Elon Musk said that the company would be growing the Austin geofence, but did not give an indication by how much.
The first geofence in Austin was roughly 20 square miles. On July 14, when the first expansion took place, Tesla Robotaxi riders had roughly 42 square miles of downtown Austin available for travel.
On the morning of August 3, Tesla nearly doubled the geofence by growing it to roughly 80 square miles, according to Grok. For reference, Waymo’s current service area in Austin is about 90 square miles:
For those asking me, here is a comparison of the newly expanded @Tesla @robotaxi
service area (as of 3 August 2025) and the newly expanded Waymo service areas in Austin, Texas.The autonomous ride hailing service area & system capabilities scalability is certainly being tested… pic.twitter.com/uaPpEP66Cq
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) August 3, 2025
The expansion further extends the Southern portion of the geofence, going into suburban zones such as Barton Creek.
The continuous growth shows Tesla is prepared to extend its geofence in basically any direction. Now that it is going into suburban areas, we may get to see more Austin residents experience Robotaxi for an entire evening of activities, including pickup and dropoff at home.
🚨 Tesla Austin Robotaxi geofence sizes (in square miles):
Initial: 6/22 – ~20 square miles
First Expansion: 7/14 – ~42 square miles
Second Expansion: 8/3 – ~80 square miles pic.twitter.com/IwnvSJseE4
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 3, 2025
The only question that remains is how much Tesla can expand at one time. The company seems to have the ability to push the geofence to a majority of Austin, but it maintains that safety is its biggest priority.
The company was spotted testing vehicles in the West Austin suburbs in areas like Marble Falls recently, indicating that Tesla could be expanding its service area to hundreds of square miles in the coming months.
Elon Musk
Tesla to appeal jury verdict that held it partially liable for fatal crash
Tesla will appeal the decision from the eight-person jury.

Tesla will appeal a recent jury verdict that held it partially liable for a fatal crash that occurred in Key Largo, Florida, in 2019.
An eight-person jury ruled that Tesla’s driver assistance technology was at least partially to blame for a crash when a vehicle driven by George McGee went off the road and hit a couple, killing a 22-year-old and injuring the other.
The jury found that Tesla’s tech was found to enable McGee to take his eyes off the road, despite the company warning drivers and vehicle operators that its systems are not a replacement for a human driver.
The company states on its website and Owner’s Manual that Autopilot and Full Self-Driving are not fully autonomous, and that drivers must be ready to take over in case of an emergency. Its website says:
“Autopilot is a driver assistance system that is intended to be used only with a fully attentive driver. It does not turn a Tesla into a fully autonomous vehicle.
Before enabling Autopilot, you must agree to ‘keep your hands on the steering wheel at all times’ and to always ‘maintain control and responsibility for your vehicle.’ Once engaged, Autopilot will also deliver an escalating series of visual and audio warnings, reminding you to place your hands on the wheel if insufficient torque is applied or your vehicle otherwise detects you may not be attentive enough to the road ahead. If you repeatedly ignore these warnings, you will be locked out from using Autopilot during that trip.
You can override any of Autopilot’s features at any time by steering or applying the accelerator at any time.”
Despite this, and the fact that McGee admitted to “fishing for his phone” after it fell, Tesla was ordered to pay hundreds of millions in damages.
Tesla attorney Joel Smith said in court (via Washington Post):
“He said he was fishing for his phone. It’s a fact. That happens in any car. That isolates the cause. The cause is he dropped his cell phone.”
In total, Tesla is responsible for $324 million in payouts: $200 million in punitive damages, $35 million to the deceased’s mother, $24 million to their father, and $70 million to their boyfriend, who was also struck but was injured and not killed.
The family of the deceased, Naibel Benavides Leon, also sued the driver and reached a settlement out of court. The family opened the federal suit against Tesla in 2024, alleging that Tesla was to blame because it operated its technology on a road “it was not designed for,” the report states.
Despite the disclosures and warnings Tesla lists in numerous places to its drivers and users of both Autopilot and Full Self-Driving, as well as all of its active safety features, the operator remains responsible for paying attention.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed it would appeal the jury’s decision:
We will
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 1, 2025
The driver being distracted is a big part of this case that seemed to be forgotten as the jury came to its decision. Tesla’s disclosures and warnings, as well as McGee’s admission of being distracted, seem to be enough to take any responsibility off the company.
The appeal process will potentially shed more light on this, especially as this will be a main point of emphasis for Tesla’s defense team.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk echoes worries over Tesla control against activist shareholders
Elon Musk has spoken on several occasions of the “activist shareholders” who threaten his role at Tesla.

Elon Musk continues to raise concerns over his control of Tesla as its CEO and one of its founders, as activist shareholders seem to be a viable threat to the company in his eyes.
Musk has voiced concerns over voting control of Tesla and the possibility of him being ousted by shareholders who do not necessarily have the company’s future in mind. Instead, they could be looking to oust Musk because of his political beliefs or because of his vast wealth.
We saw an example of that as shareholders voted on two separate occasions to award Musk a 2018 compensation package that was earned as Tesla met various growth goals through the CEO’s leadership.
Despite shareholders voting to award Musk with the compensation package on two separate occasions, once in 2018 and again in 2024, Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen McCormick denied the CEO the money both times. At one time, she called it an “unfathomable sum.”
Musk’s current stake in Tesla stands at 12.8 percent, but he has an option to purchase 304 million shares, which, if exercised, after taxes, he says, would bump his voting control up about 4 percent.
However, this is not enough of a stake in the company, as he believes a roughly 25 percent ownership stake would be enough “to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned,” he said in January 2024.
I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control. Enough to be influential, but not so much that I can’t be overturned.
Unless that is the case, I would prefer to build products outside of Tesla. You don’t seem to understand…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 15, 2024
Musk’s concerns were echoed in another X post from Thursday, where he confirmed he has no current personal loans against Tesla stock, and he reiterated his concerns of being ousted from the company by those he has referred to in the past as “activist shareholders.”
The CEO said during the company’s earnings call in late July:
“That is a major concern for me, as I’ve mentioned in the past. I hope that is addressed at the upcoming shareholders’ meeting. But, yeah, it is a big deal. I want to find that I’ve got so little control that I can easily be ousted by activist shareholders after having built this army of humanoid robots. I think my control over Tesla, Inc. should be enough to ensure that it goes in a good direction, but not so much control that I can’t be thrown out if I go crazy.”
The X post from Thursday said:
Just fyi I don’t have personal loans at this time against Tesla stock.
Also, the taxes on the options are ~45%, so net gain in voting control is more like 4%.
It is worrying in that I don’t want to build millions of robots and then potentially be ousted by activists and…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2025
There is a concern that Musk could eventually put his money where his mouth is, and if politicians and judges are able to limit his ownership stake as they’ve been able to do with his pay package, he could eventually leave the company.
The company’s shareholders voted overwhelmingly to approve Musk’s pay package. A vast majority of those who voted to get Musk paid still want him to be running Tesla’s day-to-day operations. Without his guidance, the company could face a major restructuring and would have a vastly new look and thesis.
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