Lifestyle
Tesla community comes together to witness Falcon Heavy’s first commercial flight
As Elon Musk’s private space company, SpaceX, prepares to launch the first commercial mission of Falcon Heavy, a number of Tesla community members are preparing for an experience of a lifetime. Tesla’s previous referral program included a number of secret levels that hold special rewards, among them being an invitation for the Falcon Heavy launch today. Owners who qualified for the reward were given the opportunity to witness the gigantic rocket’s flight with a guest of their choosing.
For some Tesla community members, the Falcon Heavy launch today is worth the long trip to Launch Complex 39A of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, FL. Several electric car owners who sent messages to Teslarati noted that the upcoming flight of SpaceX’s largest operational rocket is something that is not just a lot of fun; it is also something that could be a source of inspiration.
Tesla Model S owner Jim McPherson noted that he resolved to witness the next Falcon Heavy launch after he watched SpaceX propel Elon Musk’s personal Tesla Roadster to space last year. Bringing his family with him to Florida, the Tesla owner noted that he believes the event is a good way to inspire his daughter to like STEM, and at least, “be excited about the future.” The family drove from Washington D.C., using Tesla’s Supercharger Network along the way. “The supercharger network is so well built out on I95 that you really don’t have to worry much about where you will stop. It’s kind of weird it’s so easy compared to how it used to be,” he said.
Fellow Tesla Model S owner Bruce (last name not given) traveled with his daughter from Atlanta. The father-daughter team drove Monday night until Tuesday to get to Florida, camping in the back of their Model S as needed. Just like McPherson, Bruce noted that he wishes for his daughter to be inspired by the Falcon Heavy launch, particularly as she is already in love with rockets. Tesla Model 3 owner Mark (last name also not given) added that he also decided to come and see the Falcon Heavy’s next launch after last year’s maiden flight. During that time, he did not even have a Tesla. Mark drove his Model 3 all the way to Florida for today’s launch, using Navigate on Autopilot most of the way.
Some Tesla owners mentioned that the Falcon Heavy’s launch is something that can simply bring families closer to each other, particularly since events that are experienced together rarely fade from memory. “This is something that me and my kids will remember for the rest of our lives,” Kim, the host of popular Tesla-themed YouTube channel Like Tesla said.
This is also a motivator for Model 3 owner Sofiaan Fraval, who flew in from California with his wife and child for the event. The Model 3 owner noted that the delays in Falcon Heavy’s launch actually worked in his family’s favor, as the experience turned out to be a mini-vacation. Fraval stated that seeing the Falcon Heavy in person, and interacting with other Tesla enthusiasts, has made the experience amazing — and the rocket hasn’t even launched yet.
For some Tesla owners, Falcon Heavy is simply something that inspires awe and thus must be experienced firsthand. “I am here to feel the power of the worlds largest operational rocket in person,” Will Fealey, President of Tesla Owners Club UK, said. Others, such as Model S owner Eli Burton, see Falcon Heavy’s upcoming commercial flight as a “major milestone” for humanity as a whole. “This is the beginning of a sustainable path for humans to return to space, go to the Moon, and eventually go to Mars. This is now the beginning of private enterprise being the engine that drives humans to becoming a multiplanetary species,” he said.
For now, the Tesla owners at Cape Canaveral remain waiting, hoping that within the next few hours, they can literally witness a moment that will be etched in history. For referring friends to Tesla’s electric cars and energy products, this particular rewards is definitely well worth the journey.
Elon Musk
The FCC just said ‘No’ to SpaceX for now
SpaceX is fighting the FCC for spectrum that could put satellites inside every smartphone.
SpaceX was dealt a new setback on April 23, 2006 by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) after the U.S. government agency dismissed the company’s petition to access a Mobile Satellite Service spectrum that would allow direct-to-device (D2D) capabilities.
The FCC regulates communications by radio, television, wire, and cable, which also includes regulating D2D technology that lets your existing smartphone connect directly to a satellite orbiting Earth, the same way it would connect to a cell tower.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been building toward this through its Starlink Mobile service, formerly called Direct-to-Cell, in partnership with T-Mobile. The service officially launched on July 23, 2025, starting with messaging and expanding to broadband data in October of that year.
T-Mobile Starlink Pricing Announced – Early Adopters Get Exclusive Discount
It’s worth noting that SpaceX is not alone in this race. AT&T and Verizon have their own satellite texting deals with AST SpaceMobile, while Verizon separately offers free satellite texting through Skylo on newer phones.
The regulatory foundation for all of this dates to March 14, 2024, when the FCC adopted the world’s first framework for what it called Supplemental Coverage from Space, allowing satellite operators to lease spectrum from terrestrial carriers and fill gaps in their coverage. On November 26, 2024, the FCC granted SpaceX the first-ever authorization under that framework, approving its partnership with T-Mobile to provide service in specific frequency bands. SpaceX then went further, completing a roughly $17 billion acquisition of wireless spectrum from EchoStar, which gave it the ability to negotiate with global carriers more independently.
Starlink’s EchoStar spectrum deal could bring 5G coverage anywhere
This recent ruling by the FCC blocked SpaceX from going further, protecting incumbent spectrum holders like Globalstar and Iridium. But the market momentum is already in motion. As Teslarati reported, SpaceX is targeting peak speeds of 150 Mbps per user for its next generation Direct-to-Cell service, compared to roughly 4 Mbps today, which would bring satellite connectivity close to standard carrier performance.
With a reported IPO targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation on the horizon, each spectrum fight, carrier deal, and regulatory win or loss now carries weight beyond just connectivity. SpaceX is quietly becoming the infrastructure layer underneath the phones of millions of people, and the FCC’s next move will help determine how much further that reach extends.
FCC Satellite Rule Makings can be found here.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk talks Tesla Roadster’s future
Elon Musk confirmed the Roadster as Tesla’s last manually driven car, with a debut coming soon.
During Tesla’s Q1 2026 earnings call on April 22, Elon Musk made a brief but notable comment about the long-awaited next generation Roadster while describing Tesla’s future vehicle lineup. “Long term, the only manually driven car will be the new Tesla Roadster,” he said. “Speaking of which, we may be able to debut that in a month or so. It requires a lot of testing and validation before we can actually have a demo and not have something go wrong with the demo.”
That single statement is the entire Roadster update from yesterday’s call, and while it represents another timeline shift, it comes as no surprise with Tesla heads-down-at-work on the mass rollout of its Robotaxi service across US cities, and the industrial scale production of the humanoid Optimus.
The fact that Musk specifically framed the Roadster as the last manually driven Tesla is significant on its own. As the rest of the lineup moves toward full autonomy, the Roadster becomes something rare in the Tesla-sphere by keeping the driver in control. Driving enthusiasts who buy a $200,000 supercar are not doing so to be passengers. They want the physical connection to the road, the feel of acceleration under their own input, and the experience of controlling something with that level of performance. FSD, however capable it becomes, removes that entirely. The Roadster signals that Tesla understands this distinction and is building a car specifically for the people who consider driving itself the point.
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
The specs for the Roadster Musk has teased over the years are genuinely unlike anything in production. The base model targets 0 to 60 mph in 1.9 seconds, a top speed above 250 mph, and up to 620 miles of range from a 200 kWh battery. The optional SpaceX package takes it further, rumored to add roughly ten cold gas thrusters operating at 10,000 psi, borrowed directly from Falcon 9 rocket technology. With thrusters, Musk has claimed 0 to 60 mph in as little as 1.1 seconds. In a 2021 Joe Rogan interview he went further, stating “I want it to hover. We got to figure out how to make it hover without killing people.” Tesla filed a patent for ground effect technology in August 2025, suggesting the hover concept has not been abandoned. The starting price remains $200,000, with the Founders Series requiring a $250,000 full deposit. Some reservation holders placed those deposits in 2017 and are approaching a full decade of waiting.
With production now targeted for 2027 or 2028 at the earliest, the Roadster remains Tesla’s most audacious promise and its longest-running delay. But if what Musk is testing lives up to even half of what he has described, the demo alone should be worth waiting for.
Elon Musk says the Tesla Roadster unveiling could be done “maybe in a month or so.”
He said it should be an extraordinary unveiling event. pic.twitter.com/6V9P7zmvEm
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
Elon Musk
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
Tesla’s Optimus factory in Texas targets 10 million robots yearly, with 5.2 million square feet under construction.
Tesla’s Q1 2026 Update Letter, released today, confirms that first generation Optimus production lines are now well underway at its Fremont, California factory, with a pilot line targeting one million robots per year to start. Of bigger note is a shared aerial image of a large piece of land adjacent to Gigafactory Texas, that Tesla has prominently labeled “Optimus factory site preparation.”
Permit documents show Tesla is seeking to add over 5.2 million square feet of new building space to the Giga Texas North Campus by the end of 2026, at an estimated construction investment of $5 billion to $10 billion. The longer term production target for that facility is 10 million Optimus units per year. Giga Texas already sits on 2,500 acres with over 10 million square feet of existing factory floor, and the North Campus expansion is being built to support multiple projects, including the dedicated Optimus factory, the Terafab chip fabrication facility (a joint Tesla/SpaceX/xAI venture), a Cybercab test track, road infrastructure, and supporting facilities.
Credit: TESLA
Texas makes strategic sense beyond the existing infrastructure. The state’s tax structure, lower labor costs relative to California, and the proximity to Tesla’s AI training cluster Cortex 1 and 2, both located at Giga Texas and now totaling over 230,000 H100 equivalent GPUs, means the Optimus software stack and the factory producing the hardware will share the same campus. Tesla’s Q1 report also confirmed completion of the AI5 chip tape out in April, the inference processor designed specifically to power Optimus units in the field.
As Teslarati reported, the Texas facility is intended to house Optimus V4 production at full scale. Musk told the World Economic Forum in January that Tesla plans to sell Optimus to the public by end of 2027 at a price between $20,000 and $30,000, stating, “I think everyone on earth is going to have one and want one.” He has previously pegged long term demand for general purpose humanoid robots at over 20 billion units globally, citing both consumer and industrial use cases.
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