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SpaceX to send retired Starship to local Texas airport, says Elon Musk
In a brief Twitter exchange, the Brownsville/South Padre Island International Airport (BRO) appears to have talked SpaceX CEO Elon Musk into turning a retired Starship prototype into a public exhibit.
Operational in some form since 2020, SpaceX’s ‘Starbase’ Starship factory is already a bit of a tourist destination for Brownsville, Texas and the local Rio Grande Valley – particularly for fans of spaceflight and rockets. The substantial factory and a trio of orbital and suborbital launch pads are both located directly beside a public highway, a tiny private housing development, and a public beach – maintaining access to all of which has been a consistent challenge for SpaceX for years.
However, the company has continued to work to coexist with locals while simultaneously generating tourism and bringing unprecedented economic growth and publicity to the relatively quiet region. It’s increasingly unclear if SpaceX will be able to realize its full ambitions for Starbase and South Texas but Elon Musk recently reiterated the company’s commitment to maintaining a strong presence in the region whether or not the US government gives it the permissions it needs for regular Starship launches.
Musk’s drop-of-a-pin willingness to donate an entire Starship prototype to a local organization certainly exemplifies that commitment. While Starbase is already a de facto tourist destination where people can get within a stone’s throw of several prototypes of the largest rockets ever built, the setup for visitors is very impromptu, inconvenient, and right beside an active highway and rocket factory. A dedicated Starship display at a less frenetic site with dedicated parking and no need to tiptoe around a highway would undoubtedly be an improvement.
Situating that public Starship display directly beside the largest local airport would also preclude the need for prospective visitors to drive half an hour out of their way, ensuring that far more people actually get to experience a Starship up close and learn about SpaceX’s presence in the region. Thankfully, increasingly unusual behavior means that SpaceX has no shortage of prototypes to choose from.
Starship SN15 is the first prototype of any kind to fly to a moderate altitude (~10 km), fall back to Earth like a skydiver, flip around at the last second, and survive a soft landing in May 2021. Musk once said that the historic prototype would be reused on a second flight test but the ship never did and has instead sat at Starbase’s ‘Rocket Garden’ ever since. Starship SN16 – almost identical to SN15 – was also supposed to fly but never got to perform a single test before it was retired to the same garden.
Up next, SpaceX mostly finished an entire Super Heavy booster – standing almost 70 meters (230 ft) tall – late last year but sent it (B5) directly to the ‘garden’ without even attempting to finish or test the rocket. Its sister booster, Super Heavy B4, was at one point supposed to support Starship’s first orbital launch attempt but has only completed a fraction of the necessary proof tests after spending almost half a year floating around the orbital launch site. It’s entirely possible that B4 will meet its end beside B5 later this year.
Finally, SpaceX most recently decided to assemble Starship S22 – very similar to Starship S20, the other half of the first orbital test flight pair of B4/S20 – and stacked the ship to its full height on February 14th, 2022. After installing its nosecone and the last two of four flaps, though, SpaceX immediately sent the unfinished Starship to the same graveyard of retired prototypes, strongly implying that it, too, will never be used.
While increasingly confusing from a programmatic standpoint, SpaceX’s ever-growing supply of retired or fully unused Starship and Super Heavy hardware gives the company plenty of options for donating one or even several prototypes. The only real barriers are the need for a concrete foundation to secure the display vehicles and the challenge of transporting vertical, building-sized rockets by road. To get a Starship all the way to the Brownsville International Airport, a number of power lines and traffic lights would likely need to be temporarily removed or rerouted, but that’s a relatively minor inconvenience with enough political will.
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
