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Tesla’s Cybertruck is starting to catch the interest of industry leaders

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Tesla’s Cybertruck has caught the world’s attention due to its polarizing design. While it is undeniably futuristic, the vehicle’s design is so much different from every other pickup truck on the market that it is proving to be an acquired taste. Despite this, support for the vehicle is spreading quickly. This has been teased by statements from several walks of life, from law enforcement members to titans of the gaming industry, to one of the most recognized icons in the world of sports entertainment today.

When Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the Cybertruck on November 21 in Los Angeles, he said it was made to be tough. The company moved the mass of the vehicle to the outside, recognizing this design as an “exoskeleton” that will make the truck durable and long-lasting. This idea was displayed through a demonstration involving a sledgehammer and the truck’s door.

Tesla designer Franz von Holzhausen slammed the driver’s side door with the sledgehammer multiple times without doing any sort of cosmetic damage to the truck. The Cybertruck’s tough design does not fit the traditional age-old stereotype of electric vehicles being weak and underpowered — an idea that many non-electric car enthusiasts hold onto.

The unusual design choice Tesla chose for its first pickup truck, while polarizing and unusual, caught the attention of many people, including Kansas Highway Patrol member Ben Gardner, who stated he was interested in using the Cybertruck while on duty. Trooper Ben, as he is known as on Twitter, started the speculation when he tweeted “Hear me out…. #Cybertruck patrol vehicle?! #SignMeUp.” This tweet was met with renderings from a designer named Daniel Scott, who provided a render of the Cybertruck as a police vehicle. 

Tesla vehicles have been utilized by some police forces in the United States, including a Model S for the Fremont PD near the Tesla factory in California, and a Model 3 in Bargersville, Indiana.

Another prominent figure from another industry has requested a Cybertruck design from Elon Musk. Min-Liang Tan, CEO of Razer, a gaming hardware manufacturing company, has requested a Cybertruck themed with his company’s logo and color scheme. Tan tweeted the Tesla CEO on November 25, sending a pretty slick-looking render of the black and green Razer themed Cybertruck, along with a question regarding Tesla’s status in his home country of Singapore.

https://twitter.com/minliangtan/status/1198987366716911618

Tan’s proposed design for his custom Cybertruck even caught the attention of Musk, who liked the tweet.

Finally, one of the biggest sports icons in the world today has complimented and requested a pre-order of the Cybertruck. Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) superstar Conor McGregor tweeted Musk following the CEO’s announcement of 200,000 Cybertruck pre-orders. McGregor, who is known throughout the world as “The Notorious,” is known for his flashy clothing and cars. The man who regularly sports designer threads and some of the fastest sports cars in the world focused on the impressive pre-orders the truck has received. But McGregor did not stop there, as he also requested a couple of Boring Company flamethrowers in the process, too.

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The man who is the first fighter in UFC history to hold championship belts at two separate weight classes is known for his flashy style both inside and outside of the Octagon, McGregor is a longtime follower of Musk on Twitter. Perhaps he is looking to add some high-performance, electric-powered vehicles to his fleet of automobiles.

McGregor’s thirst for unique automobiles has spread to the Tesla Cybertruck. Credit: Instagram/@TheNotoriousMMA

Kansas Highway Patrol, the Razer CEO, and the MMA fighter are but the tip of the iceberg for notable personalities who are starting to warm up to the Tesla’s polarizing pickup truck. YouTube superstars, musicians, and social media influencers have also publicly stated that they have posted reservations for the vehicle.

As the Cybertruck nears the quarter-million pre-order mark, the truck’s unique shape and design have obviously won many people over. It seems that the Cybertruck is becoming the “cool” truck of the next decade, a truck that some of the toughest, most bleeding-edge people in the world have their sights set on. The boldness of Tesla to release the truck has caught the attention of leading figures in their respective fields, making it one of the most talked-about vehicles today.

Joey has been a journalist covering electric mobility at TESLARATI since August 2019. In his spare time, Joey is playing golf, watching MMA, or cheering on any of his favorite sports teams, including the Baltimore Ravens and Orioles, Miami Heat, Washington Capitals, and Penn State Nittany Lions. You can get in touch with joey at joey@teslarati.com. He is also on X @KlenderJoey. If you're looking for great Tesla accessories, check out shop.teslarati.com

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Elon Musk

The Boring Company’s latest Tesla tunnel truck mod “fits like a glove”

The Boring Company has modified a Tesla powered tunnel truck to carry freight containers underground.

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The Boring Company has found a second job for the Tesla hardware it already runs underground. In a post on X, Elon Musk’s tunneling company showed its latest Prufrock Liner Truck modified to carry a standard 20 foot shipping container. “Using TBC tunnels to transport freight,” the company wrote. “The latest Prufrock Liner Truck (using Tesla Model 3 batteries and drive units) has been modified to carry a standard 20′ shipping container. Fits like a glove!”

The photo shows a red container sitting on a long, low white chassis parked outside, with drive hardware visible at one end. The Boring Company did not say where or when freight hauling would start, which customers it has in mind, or how many trucks it is converting.

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Until now, the liner trucks have hauled concrete. Teslarati reported in August on Liner Truck 3, which uses Model 3 battery packs and drive units to move more than 22,000 pounds of precast tunnel segments to the boring machine. It has 28 miles of range, tops out at 12 mph, and is piloted remotely from the company’s operations center in Texas. The freight version appears to be the same platform with a different bed, and The Boring Company has not said whether it will also be remotely piloted.

Freight has been on the company’s menu for years. When TBC updated its product lineup in 2021, its freight tunnel was described as sized to fit a standard shipping container, “barely.” The company later used the idea at Tesla’s own factory, where Prufrock 3 dug a tunnel to Giga Texas that now moves finished Cybertrucks away from the production line.

The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D in September at a $23 billion valuation, and Teslarati has covered how that money is tied to a UAE tunneling push and a faster Nashville build. In Nashville, Prufrock MB1 and MB2 are mining at the same time, and a third machine is expected to launch in late October. Each machine needs a steady supply of liner trucks, so any design that works for segments and containers alike gives the company more use out of the same Tesla parts.

The Vegas Loop remains the only Boring Company system open to the public, and it moves passengers in Tesla vehicles. A freight service would be a separate product, and the post gave no indication that one is close to launch. For now, it is a truck, a container and a short caption saying they fit together.

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Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027

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Credit: Grok Imagine

Elon Musk said he is planning to give “every one of his SpaceX shares to every kid in America” in 2027, stating that “this will be the first of many.”

SpaceX went public earlier this year, and its stock price has been relatively stable since leveling off shortly after its IPO. Based on its current price, it’s a gift of just over $10 billion to children across the United States.

It appears to be closely related to President Donald Trump’s bank accounts for children, which were set up earlier this year as Trump Accounts.

Just hours earlier, Anthropic had announced the establishment of its Anthropic Public Benefit Fund, “a new wholly-owned entity dedicated entirely to public benefit.” Musk responded by stating he recommended “giving the shares directly to the public,” and that he would be doing it that way.

Just a little bit later, Musk said children across the U.S. would be getting a share from him:

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There are roughly 70 million children, meaning someone under the age of 18, in the United States, according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics. Musk’s ownership of SpaceX stock shows he has around 849 million Class A shares of SpaceX stock, according to filings with the SEC.

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Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened

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(Credit: The Boring Company)

Elon Musk revealed in a post on X that “Permits were impossible to get,” explaining the fate of The Boring Company’s most ambitious East Coast proposal.

The comment responded to a query about what became of his July 20, 2017 announcement that he had “just received verbal govt approval” for an underground Hyperloop connecting New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C., capable of carrying passengers from the Big Apple to the Nation’s Capital in just 29 minutes.

The Boring Company receives verbal ‘approval’ to build NY to DC Hyperloop tunnel

The 2017 post, which envisioned city-center stations and multiple elevators in each city, sparked immediate scrutiny. Local and state officials in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and D.C. said they had no knowledge of any approval. A White House spokesperson confirmed only “promising conversations” about the transformative infrastructure.

Musk clarified shortly after that there was “still a lot of work” to do for formal approvals.

Limited progress followed, as Maryland Governor Larry Hogan’s administration issued a conditional utility permit and supported work near Fort Meade. In 2018, Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary permit for site preparation and excavation on a vacant lot at 53 New York Ave. NE in the NoMa neighborhood, which The Boring Company said could become a station.

A draft environmental assessment for a D.C.-Baltimore segment was released in 2019. Yet, by April 2021, the company had removed the project from its website, and the Federal Highway Administration reported receiving no indication of further interest. Communication with Maryland officials had ceased.

The full corridor would have required coordination among the District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, the Federal Highway Administration, the Army Corps of Engineers, the National Park Service, and other agencies.

Environmental reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, utility clearances, and approvals for novel infrastructure added to the overall complexity of the project and its approval.

Speculation on the permitting barriers centers around a few factors, but a multi-state, multi-level route involving unproven high-speed vacuum-tube technology inherently triggers exhaustive safety, environmental, and engineering reviews that can stretch for years, even for conventional projects.

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There are also other elements, of course, like officials who may face political exposure if a privately funded, untested system encountered anything such as cost overruns, delays, or safety issues. On the outset of this project, there were limited things such as engineering plans or demonstrated technology maturity, which also added to the potential skepticism.

The East Coast vision for Boring Co., once framed as a privately funded revolution that could reshape Northeast travel, quietly ended without construction of the promised network. Musk’s recent statement frames the outcome as a regulatory impasse, unfortunate but not unexpected.

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