Starlink is keeping everyone connected, including a former Tesla employee who went viral on TikTok for his dome in the desert. While using the app, a viral video by Always Kenny popped up on my For You Page. He’s known on the app as the hole guy or the dome guy.
In the video, Reid explained how he was able to have internet while living in the desert. I thought his story would be great to share here and I asked him to share it with me.
From Tesla to the desert
Reid told me that he was working for Tesla after he’d finished college and left Tesla to work for a few startups here and there. However, he wasn’t fulfilling his purpose in life just yet.
“I kind of knew that there was something bigger–more different that I wanted to do. Covid hit and Tesla stock shot up so I drove around the country looking for a place to settle down. A place that wasn’t Seattle or San Francisco.”
While working at Tesla, Reid purchased a Model 3 and was one of the first people to actually live out of his Tesla.
“I did that for about a year. That’s how I saw the country. I did a loop through the West Coast, saw the national parks, and then I did a loop going through the South, sleeping at Superchargers.”
“Weirdly enough I came out here and fell in love with this place, dug a hole and put a dome in it and the rest is history. It’s still being written.”
Reid has made his home in the desert and went viral on TikTok when he built the dome. He asked viewers for feedback and has gotten a lot of great tips on how to make his dome efficient and better.
Although Reid lives in the dome, he told me he does go to civilization, however, this is where his heart is. It’s his home.
Starlink in the desert.
Reid has had Starlink since he first decided to make his home in the dome.
“I had Starlink since I got here. I was on the waiting list and luckily, right before I came out, they sent me the satellite dish. It was actually waiting here in mid-March when I came out. It was an essential part of me doing this entire thing.”
“Going somewhere this remote, it was super important that I stay connected to my friends, family, and the outer world, in general. I couldn’t have done this last year.”
I asked Reid to share his thoughts about the new partnership between SpaceX and T-Mobile. The new partnership will end mobile dead zones with the launch of a new mobile service that is enabled by Starlink’s second-generation satellites and T-Mobile’s bandwidth.
“That’s great news. I would love to be able to drive around and never lose service. I’ve spent so much time on the road that I have to have my playlist downloaded so I end up listening to the same song over and over again. It’s not worth the pain of going through service challenges.”
The new Starlink and T-Mobile service is what Reid is the most excited about, he said. It takes him two hours to get to the grocery store and the majority of that is out of service.
“So to be able to still call people and move things forward with my life while on the road out here, that’s going to be huge.”
Some of the challenges of living in a dome in the desert.
Some of the challenges Reid has faced head-on include extreme heat and staying cool. He’s also seen a few scorpions and snakes here and there–but nothing poisonous, yet.
“It’s been nothing but challenges but that’s kind of why I did this. I knew that putting a dome that I bought at Walmart for $600 in a hole that I dug with pretty much no other preparation was going to be a little problematic.”
“But right now, I’m fixing a problem where the sand is caving into the sides of the dome and making all the beams snap and bend. In its current state, it wouldn’t last very long. So I’m currently putting some wood around the side. I actually made a video asking TikTok for help and people have really good suggestions on reinforcing the dome to make it last longer.”
Reid is also building a house and is learning all things that go into building a home.
“It just makes me appreciate any building and structure that people live in so much more. It’s been eye-opening.”
The heat is another challenge. Although he expected it to be hot in the desert, it’s actually hotter inside the dome.
“It’s not well-designed for the summer. It’s about 15-20 degrees hotter in there than it is outside. It’s like 100 outside and 118 in the dome.”
While waiting for things to cool off, Reid has kept himself busy and cool by digging out another hole and making it into a pool.
“I dug a pool one night and put some tarps in the bottom of it and put another dome that I built over that. It’s created an indoor shaded pool which has been nice for hanging out during the day. I also bought an umbrella.”
Reid’s story is one of many provided by Starlink users. I’ve received a lot of feedback on my Starlink-related articles with people sharing their stories or wishes for Starlink to be available in their rural areas.
One of our readers told me that before Starlink, he couldn’t find cost effective internet service. “Thanks to Elon Musk he has made a difference in rural communities.”
Another one of our readers, a doctor, told me that they’ve been a rural Starlink client for over a year. “This service is akin to early man discovering fire or the wheel. Two children and an adult all zooming for college and work while recording other digital items with no issues is our new life.”
The doctor noted that the regulatory authorities who oversee Starlink have grossly misjudged Starlink. I believe he’s referring to the Federal Communications Commission’s reversal of Starlink’s $885.5 million infrastructure award. SpaceX is currently appealing the FCC’s reversal of the award and even FCC Commissioner Brendon Carr called out the agency for denying Starlink’s award.
I agree with the doctor, Commissioner Carr, and SpaceX. Starlink, in my opinion, will not only keep people connected but save lives during disasters. I’ve spoken about being without communications during hurricane Ida’s aftermath. And in my interview with Elon Musk, he emphasized the importance of Starlink as a life-saving tool. Elon told me,
“Well, just in general, Starlink, because it is not dependent on any ground-based infrastructure can provide internet connectivity to areas that have had floods or fires or earthquakes that t have destroyed the ground-based infrastructure.”
“That’s obviously extremely helpful for rescuing people and people being able to ‘I need to I need help. I need rescue.’ It’s like how do you find them? How do you communicate with them? Starlink can and has provided that in a number of situations.”
Note: Johnna is a Tesla shareholder and supports its mission.
Your feedback is important. If you have any comments, or concerns, or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.
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Elon Musk
Tesla CEO Elon Musk teases Optimus job that’s straight out of Robocop
“If somebody’s committed a crime, we might be able to provide a more humane form of containment of future crime. You now get a free Optimus, and it’s just going to follow you around and stop you from doing crime.”
Tesla CEO Elon Musk teased a potential job for the company’s Optimus robot last week that is straight out of the movie “Robocop.”
“Robocop” aimed to show a futuristic look at law enforcement in a Sci-fi thriller that was among the first iterations of how robots could be used for police work.
The 1987 film showcased an injured cop turning into an armed cyborg, and although Tesla’s Optimus won’t be a human-robot hybrid, Musk’s idea for the humanoid project is similar.
Musk said last week at the Annual Shareholder Meeting, where shareholders voted to approve his $1 trillion compensation plan, that Optimus could be the future of law enforcement, nearly revolutionizing the way criminals are prosecuted.
He hinted that Optimus could actually be used as a chaperone of sorts, arguing that it was a “more humane form of containment of future crime.” Musk said:
“If somebody’s committed a crime, we might be able to provide a more humane form of containment of future crime. You now get a free Optimus, and it’s just going to follow you around and stop you from doing crime. Other than that, you get to do anything; it’s just going to stop you from committing crime. That’s really it. You don’t have to put people in prisons and stuff. It’s pretty wild to think of all the possibilities, but I think it’s clearly the future.”
Elon Musk: With Optimus, we might be able to stop putting people in prison.
“If somebody’s committed a crime, we might be able to provide a more humane form of containment of future crime. You now get a free Optimus, and it’s just going to follow you around and stop you from… pic.twitter.com/Y8E2ToyNkd
— ELON CLIPS (@ElonClipsX) November 10, 2025
Musk’s overall idea for Optimus is to change the way people are able to exist, from those law-abiding citizens to others who have their run-ins with the law. Instead, the Tesla CEO believes there could be a different way to handle everything, including punishment.
It was not the only thing that Musk indicated could be changed significantly by the presence of humanoid robots, as he also said a universal basic income could be established with the help of products like Optimus.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk teases huge merger: ‘Trending towards convergence’
“My companies are, surprisingly in some ways, trending towards convergence.”
Elon Musk recently amplified the thoughts of Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, who had insight into the “Muskonomy” of his potentially interconnected ventures, something that was proposed at the recent Tesla Shareholder Meeting with xAI.
Musk’s words indicate a potential strategic fusion that could serve as a blueprint for future innovation–but it is dependent on a conglomeration between the many entities the CEO serves.
As Tesla grapples with scaling Optimus and preparing for its imminent production and the development of the Full Self-Driving suite, xAI’s computational edge could provide leverage for the millions of miles of data the company accumulates, providing a more stable and accurate development strategy for the autonomous and AI efforts it has put its chips all in on.
After Tesla Shareholders voted to deny Tesla and xAI’s potential financial partnership through an investment, Jonas said it was an issue that would have to be revisited due to its importance.
xAI has the opportunity to provide an incredible strategic and financial bolstering to Tesla, especially with how important a role data plays in the development of the company’s biggest products.
Jonas wrote in a note to investors:
“They’re gonna have to revisit this. We don’t think investors understand just how important xAI is to Tesla and the broader Muskonomy. Tesla’s relationship with xAI (financially and strategically) is deterministic to the long-term success of Tesla due in part to the natural synergies of data, software, hardware, and manufacturing in recursive loops. The values (and value systems) of both Tesla and xAI are endowed by the values of their shared creator. We believe this co-determination becomes more obvious in the next phases of physical AI/ autonomy for Tesla in the year ahead.”
Musk said, in response to Jonas’ note, that his companies are “surprisingly in some ways, trending toward convergence.”
My companies are, surprisingly in some ways, trending towards convergence
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 10, 2025
Mergers and shared ecosystems between companies are not new moves out of Musk’s playbook, as it has been done in the past, especially with Tesla acquiring other entities.
It did it with SolarCity in 2016 and with Maxwell Technologies in 2019. Investments between Musk companies have occurred before, too, as SpaceX dumped $2 billion into xAI last July.
He’s also said on several occasions that he could eventually bring everything together into some sort of single entity. In July 2024, he said:
“I’m not opposed to the idea in principle, but I’m not sure there is a pragmatic or legal way to merge them. There is also value in equity incentives of people at the companies being tied to that company’s accomplishments.”
This point is especially relevant now with Musk’s recently approved compensation package.
He also said in June, during an interview with CNBC , that “It’s not out of the question” for xAI to merge with Tesla, but it would have to be approved by shareholders. Just a few days later, he said he would not support xAI merging with Tesla; however, he put it in investors’ hands.
It’s more than just a deal; it’s symbiotic. Musk being at the helm of various companies, all intertwined with one another, helps foster recursive innovation. Despite these advantages, there are still a handful of things to consider, especially from a regulatory perspective.
However, it is not competition; it’s convergence. In Musk’s universe, especially from a business sense, mergers are not endpoints, but instead launchpads for ambitions that aim to take each company from Earth to lands beyond our atmosphere.
Elon Musk
Tesla makes Elon Musk’s new compensation package official
This is an important thing to note, as much of the media coverage regarding Musk’s pay package seems to indicate that the company and the shareholders are simply giving the CEO the money. He has to come through on each of these tranches to unlock the $1 trillion.
Tesla has made CEO Elon Musk’s new compensation package official, as it filed a Form 4 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday.
The package officially gives Musk the opportunity to acquire over 423 million shares of Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA), dependent on his ability to achieve twelve performance-based tranches that will bring growth to the company and its shareholders.
Tesla (TSLA) shareholders officially approve Elon Musk’s 2025 performance award
Musk’s new compensation package was approved by investors last Thursday at the company’s Annual Shareholder Meeting, as over 75 percent of voters supported the CEO’s new plan, which could be valued at over $1 trillion if he is able to come through on all twelve tranches.
The twelve tranches include growth goals related to vehicle deliveries, the Optimus humanoid robot project, and Tesla’s valuation. If Musk is able to achieve each tranche, he would help Tesla achieve an over $8 trillion market cap.
The 12 tranches include:
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$2 trillion market cap + Deliver 20 million Tesla vehicles cumulatively
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$2.5 trillion market cap + Reach 10 million active Full Self-Driving (FSD) subscriptions
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$3 trillion market cap + Deliver 1 million Optimus humanoid robots
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$3.5 trillion market cap + Operate 1 million Robotaxis commercially
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$4 trillion market cap + Hit $50 billion in adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, etc.)
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$4.5 trillion market cap + Hit $80 billion in adjusted EBITDA
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$5 trillion market cap + Hit $130 billion in adjusted EBITDA
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$5.5 trillion market cap + Hit $210 billion in adjusted EBITDA
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$6 trillion market cap + Hit $300 billion in adjusted EBITDA
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$6.5 trillion market cap + Hit $400 billion in adjusted EBITDA
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$7.5 trillion market cap + Hit $400 billion in adjusted EBITDA for four straight quarters in a row
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$8.5 trillion market cap + Hit $400 billion in adjusted EBITDA for four straight quarters in a row
Achieving the twelve levels of the new compensation package would also give Musk what he’s really after: a larger ownership share in Tesla, which would help him achieve more control, something he feels is necessary for the rollout of the Optimus robot “army.”
Musk does not earn a dime if he does not achieve any of the tranches above.
This is an important thing to note, as much of the media coverage regarding Musk’s pay package seems to indicate that the company and the shareholders are simply giving the CEO the money. He has to come through on each of these tranches to unlock the $1 trillion.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk teases Optimus job that’s straight out of Robocop
Elon Musk teases huge merger: ‘Trending towards convergence’
Tesla makes Elon Musk’s new compensation package official
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