Lifestyle
Tesla community sends Elon Musk well-wishes as CEO works on his 48th birthday
Every so often, an innovator with the capability to inspire and move people emerges. These men and women in the past have left their mark in society, and in this era, one of these innovators could very well be Elon Musk. And as the industrialist celebrates yet another birthday working at his electric car company, the Tesla and SpaceX community has banded together to extend their well-wishes to the hard working chief executive.
Today marks Elon Musk’s 48th year on Earth (0 years on Mars, for now), and in a recent Twitter interaction with his social media followers, the CEO mentioned that he would just be working on his birthday. Tesla, after all, is at a crucial point, with the company attempting to reach its delivery and production goals before the end of the second quarter. This would require everyone at Tesla, Musk included, to work extra hard until the end of June to deliver as many vehicles to customers as possible.
The Tesla community is known for being an appreciative group. Taking the initiative, a number of enthusiasts have taken it upon themselves to compile several warm birthday greetings from Tesla and SpaceX supporters across the globe. One of these came in the form of a video compiled by Model 3 owner-enthusiast Tesla_Raj, who runs a YouTube channel. An initiative to gather letters from Tesla supporters in numerous countries has also resulted in a long list of around 500 people thanking Musk for his work and wishing him well on his birthday.
Many of Musk’s birthday greetings featured well-wishes from individuals, families, and groups who have been positively affected by Tesla in one way or another. Several greetings were also quick to remind the CEO that it is important to take a breather once in a while, a reference to Musk’s tendency to overwork himself during times when Tesla is under pressure. Musk explained this habit in an interview last year, when he described his 120-hour workweeks during the height of the Model 3 ramp as some of the most painful points of his career.
A key theme that is also present in a good number of greetings were references to Musk and Tesla’s ongoing battle against veterans in the auto industry, as well as the negative narrative surrounding the company that has remained persistent over the years. Quite unsurprisingly, some of these struggles were mentioned by a Tesla community member who created an Elon Musk-inspired track as a birthday gift under the meme-proficient CEO’s fictional label, Emo G records.
Looking at the history of Tesla and SpaceX, it is evident that Musk is someone who never really takes the path of least resistance. And it is evident in the constant battle that both companies continue to fight today. SpaceX is somewhat protected from the rabid attacks directed at Tesla by skeptics due to the company’s private nature, but the company is no stranger to negativity. Tesla, of course, is pretty much the resident whipping boy of critics thanks to a pervading negative narrative surrounding the company and its products.
Yet, despite these challenges, both companies have flourished nonetheless. SpaceX currently operates one of the world’s most powerful rockets, the Falcon Heavy, which has already flawlessly delivered two commercial payloads this year. Tesla, for its part, continues to take a steadily larger piece of the auto market that has long been guarded by veteran carmakers. All these, of course, were the results of the hard work of thousands upon thousands of people working tirelessly at both SpaceX and Tesla. All these won’t be possible either without a CEO that is willing to lead from the front lines.
Musk is considered to be a man of many talents, but perhaps his biggest strength is his stubborn refusal to give up. In an interview with 60 Minutes back in 2012, Musk noted that he would have to be “dead or completely incapacitated” before he throws in the towel, and he has stood by these words ever since. The original Tesla Roadster was released at the worst possible time due to the US financial crisis; the Model S was mocked as “vaporware” during the years leading up to its release; the Model X was dubbed impossible due to its complexity; and the Model 3 was dismissed as a sure-fire failure that will crumble amidst the shadow of competitors such as the Chevy Bolt EV. As history would prove, each one of these vehicles would prove to be successful.
Even at 48 years old, Musk remains optimistic, almost to a fault. One could sigh at how Musk seemingly retains some naïveté to a certain degree, being a person that seemingly still believes in the good in people. This is evident in the mission of both his companies, with SpaceX aiming to make humans an interplanetary species and Tesla looking to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy. As the Tesla and SpaceX story unravels more, one cannot help but conclude that in more ways than one, Elon Musk is precisely the type of innovator that the world needs right now: optimistic, persistent to a fault, flawed, relentless, and most of all, unwilling to accept the word “impossible.” And for being that, Musk deserves all the well-wishes he can get on this special (working) day.
Elon Musk
How to use Grok Bot to block spam calls and texts
Musk told users to ask Grok Bot to scrub their phone numbers from spam lists.
Elon Musk has a new use case for Grok Bot, and it is the spam call. On Thursday he replied to an X user named Arash with a short instruction: “Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!” Arash had said he got tired of the calls, had an AI bot find his number on listing sites and file removal requests, and packaged the process as a free skill for others.
The skill is called Spam-Call Scrubber, which is described to find a phone number on people search sites and data brokers, submits the opt outs, completes the confirmation emails those sites send back, and rechecks on a schedule the user picks. Using it requires the Grok Bot app. The pitch is time saved, since most broker opt outs sit behind separate forms on separate sites.
Ask your @Grok @Bot to remove your phone number from spam call & text lists!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2026
Musk said Grok Bot now gives each bot its own email address, and that it can detect scam emails. On Thursday he also said SpaceX would make users whole if the bot botches a purchase or leaks a card, then told users to shop away from Amazon after the retailer blocked the agent, as Teslarati reported. The terms of service we reviewed at the time put responsibility for what an agent does on the user.
For Tesla owners, Grok Bot is not just a phone app. Tesla brought Grok Bot into its vehicles on September 22, and we argued earlier this week that the Cybercab’s real advantage may be the errands it runs during a ride. Every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y Robotaxi fleet has it enabled. The more routine tasks like this one become, the more a rider has reason to hand over something personal in the back seat.
The new Spam-Call Scrubber skill can be downloaded for free and works on sites that honor removal requests, while noting that listings can reappear, and illegal robocallers do not check any registry. Whether Spam-Call Scrubber cuts anyone’s call volume is something the first wave of users will find out, and Musk’s endorsement guarantees that wave is coming.
For a century, the car has asked the same thing of its owner, which is basically to pay attention. Even the best ride-hailing app like Uber or Lyft only moved the problem into someone else’s hands. You stopped driving, but you still sat in a stranger’s car, while half listening, and wondering whether to take a phone call in the car without being rude. The Cybercab has no wheel, no pedals and no driver. With Grok @bot now live inside it, it becomes something else entirely, and I think that matters more than the fleet count that everyone is tracking.
Grok @bot is an agent, not a voice assistant. A rider signs in once, and from then on can say what they need and watch it happen. Order dinner from a favorite restaurant. Fill the grocery cart. Move money, answer email, adjust a calendar, push a work project forward. Tesla engineer Yun-Ta Tsai confirmed it is enabled across every Cybercab and the rest of the Model Y fleet, and Tesla’s own pitch is that Full Self-Driving handles the commute while Grok handles the errands.
Think about what that does to a thirty minute ride. Uber sells you a trip, while Waymo sells you the same trip in a more private setting. Tesla is selling the thirty minutes themselves, returned to you with an assistant attached. Errands that used to eat a Saturday get done between pickup and drop off. The ride stops being dead time between two places and becomes a place of its own.
Tesla integrates Grok Bot into its vehicles for the ultimate personal assistant
Best of all, your Bots follow you into any Cybercab, and presumably your own Tesla, then logs you out automatically when you step out. Anyone can bolt a chatbot onto a screen, but much harder to own the vehicle, the autonomy stack and the assistant at once. It also quietly ties SpaceX’s Super Intelligence business to Tesla’s fleet, after Tesla converted its xAI stake into SpaceX equity. The relationship between those two companies is getting harder to describe as separate.
This is also where the hard questions start, because an agent that can spend your money in a vehicle other people also ride in needs some answers. How does it handle a voice it shouldn’t trust? What gets recorded, who can see it, and for how long? What happens when a rider leaves halfway through a task?
If Tesla gets those answers right, the scoreboard changes. We have been counting Cybercabs and wait times. The more telling number may be what riders accomplish per trip. That is data almost no one else will ever have, and it is the real reason to watch Grok @bot.
What do you think? Leave me a comment.
Lifestyle
Tesla’s mirrorless Cybercab will give riders a visibility upgrade
Tesla engineer confirms Cybercab update letting riders pull up rear and repeater cameras on demand.
Tesla is working on a Cybercab update that would let passengers pull up the vehicle’s rear and side cameras on demand, and the request came straight from a rider.
The exchange played out on X late Friday. Cybercab rider Dan Burkland shared photos of the two-seater’s cabin screen after an evening ride, praised the UI team’s work, and left one request: let riders open the rear and repeater cameras whenever they want, “especially for peace of mind.” Tesla UI software engineer Evan (@CarCoder) answered with two words: “In development.”
The Tesla UI team absolutely crushed it with the infotainment software. Nicely done @CarCoder!
One feature request: Allow folks to pull up the rear & repeater cameras on demand. This would be great especially for peace of mind. https://t.co/mNAOSLx6pE
— Dan Burkland (@DBurkland) October 10, 2026
The idea fits a pattern Teslarati has tracked since public rides began. Days after paid Cybercab service opened in Austin, Tesla sent riders a survey that asked them to rate the touchscreen, the app and the cabin, and to pick the features they wanted most. We reported on that survey in September, and a camera view is the kind of small software change Tesla can push quickly if riders keep asking.
It also speaks to something unique about the vehicle. With no steering wheel, no pedals and no driver, passengers have no mirror to check and no way to see behind them. The hardware is clearly built for camera awareness, from the repeater cameras to the rear camera. Letting a passenger look through those same cameras would give a nervous first time rider a way to confirm what is around the car.
The timing matters because the fleet is growing fast. Tesla’s Robotaxi account said on Saturday that more than 300 Cybercabs are now serving Austin, an eightfold increase in 30 days, and Tesla AI chief Ashok Elluswamy named Dallas as the next city. More cars and more cities mean more people riding in a driverless vehicle for the first time, which is exactly when small trust features carry weight.
For now, the feature is confirmed only as in development. If Tesla follows its usual pattern with Cybercab software, riders could see it appear in a point release without any announcement, and Teslarati will watch for it.
Tesla is building its own maps to fix Navigation issues
Tesla buyers are buying for Full Self-Driving and not for the car, data shows
