Connect with us

News

Tesla CEO Elon Musk wraps up China trip, heads back to US

Credit: Grace Tao/Weibo

Published

on

Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrapped up a two-day trip to China on Thursday. As per local reports, Musk has departed China and is now on his way back to the United States. 

Musk’s recent trip was eventful. Over the course of his two-day visit, the CEO met with several notable government officials and a key battery supplier. He also visited Tesla’s Gigafactory Shanghai facility, the electric vehicle maker’s largest factory by volume.

Photos released by Tesla showed Musk holding up a “Giga Shanghai” sign at the factory, flanked by hundreds of staff including head of global manufacturing Tom Zhu. The photo was reportedly taken at night, hinting at the busy day that the CEO and his fellow Tesla executives had. 

“A very rewarding day!” Tesla China’s public affairs chief Grace Tao wrote on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

Advertisement

Just hours after arriving in the country, Musk met with China’s foreign minister. He had meetings with China’s commerce and industry ministers in Beijing the next day. Musk was also photographed dining with the chairman of battery supplier Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd (CATL), which supplies Gigafactory Shanghai with battery cells.

Musk has been praised by the Chinese public since his arrival on Tuesday, with publications such as Reuters noticing that Musk’s treatment during his visit has been especially positive. Musk, for his part, has been uncharacteristically silent, as he has yet to make any public statements about his trip. This is quite interesting considering that Musk is a constant presence on Twitter, especially following his acquisition of the social media platform. 

The details of Musk’s meetings with Chinese officials are yet to be shared. That being said, the industry ministry noted that Musk and its head exchanged views about the development of electric vehicles and connected cars. The commerce ministry, on the other hand, noted that Musk discussed Tesla’s development in China with its minister.

Musk’s private jet departed from Shanghai’s Hongqiao airport at 11:23 a.m. local time. The jet is headed for Austin, Texas, as per Variflight, a flight-tracking platform.

Advertisement

Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

Advertisement
Comments

News

Starlink goes mainstream with first-ever SpaceX Super Bowl advertisement

SpaceX used the Super Bowl broadcast to promote Starlink, pitching the service as fast, affordable broadband available across much of the world.

Published

on

Credit: Starlink/X

SpaceX aired its first-ever Super Bowl commercial on Sunday, marking a rare move into mass-market advertising as it seeks to broaden adoption of its Starlink satellite internet service.

Starlink Super Bowl advertisement

SpaceX used the Super Bowl broadcast to promote Starlink, pitching the service as fast, affordable broadband available across much of the world.

The advertisement highlighted Starlink’s global coverage and emphasized simplified customer onboarding, stating that users can sign up for service in minutes through the company’s website or by phone in the United States.

The campaign comes as SpaceX accelerates Starlink’s commercial expansion. The satellite internet service grew its global user base in 2025 to over 9 million subscribers and entered several dozen additional markets, as per company statements.

Advertisement

Starlink growth and momentum

Starlink has seen notable success in numerous regions across the globe. Brazil, in particular, has become one of Starlink’s largest growth regions, recently surpassing one million users, as per Ookla data. The company has also expanded beyond residential broadband into aviation connectivity and its emerging direct-to-cellular service.

Starlink has recently offered aggressive promotions in select regions, including discounted or free hardware, waived installation fees, and reduced monthly pricing. Some regions even include free Starlink Mini for select subscribers. In parallel, SpaceX has introduced AI-driven tools to streamline customer sign-ups and service selection.

The Super Bowl appearance hints at a notable shift for Starlink, which previously relied largely on organic growth and enterprise contracts. The ad suggests SpaceX is positioning Starlink as a mainstream alternative to traditional broadband providers.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla engineers deflected calls from this tech giant’s now-defunct EV project

Published

on

Image Created by Grok

Tesla engineers deflected calls from Apple on a daily basis while the tech giant was developing its now-defunct electric vehicle program, which was known as “Project Titan.”

Back in 2022 and 2023, Apple was developing an EV in a top-secret internal fashion, hoping to launch it by 2028 with a fully autonomous driving suite.

However, Apple bailed on the project in early 2024, as Project Titan abandoned the project in an email to over 2,000 employees. The company had backtracked its expectations for the vehicle on several occasions, initially hoping to launch it with no human driving controls and only with an autonomous driving suite.

Apple canceling its EV has drawn a wide array of reactions across tech

It then planned for a 2028 launch with “limited autonomous driving.” But it seemed to be a bit of a concession at that point; Apple was not prepared to take on industry giants like Tesla.

Wedbush’s Dan Ives noted in a communication to investors that, “The writing was on the wall for Apple with a much different EV landscape forming that would have made this an uphill battle. Most of these Project Titan engineers are now all focused on AI at Apple, which is the right move.”

Apple did all it could to develop a competitive EV that would attract car buyers, including attempting to poach top talent from Tesla.

In a new podcast interview with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, it was revealed that Apple had been calling Tesla engineers nonstop during its development of the now-defunct project. Musk said the engineers “just unplugged their phones.”

Musk said in full:

“They were carpet bombing Tesla with recruiting calls. Engineers just unplugged their phones. Their opening offer without any interview would be double the compensation at Tesla.”

Interestingly, Apple had acquired some ex-Tesla employees for its project, like Senior Director of Engineering Dr. Michael Schwekutsch, who eventually left for Archer Aviation.

Tesla took no legal action against Apple for attempting to poach its employees, as it has with other companies. It came after EV rival Rivian in mid-2020, after stating an “alarming pattern” of poaching employees was noticed.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla to a $100T market cap? Elon Musk’s response may shock you

Published

on

tesla elon musk

There are a lot of Tesla bulls out there who have astronomical expectations for the company, especially as its arm of reach has gone well past automotive and energy and entered artificial intelligence and robotics.

However, some of the most bullish Tesla investors believe the company could become worth $100 trillion, and CEO Elon Musk does not believe that number is completely out of the question, even if it sounds almost ridiculous.

To put that number into perspective, the top ten most valuable companies in the world — NVIDIA, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, TSMC, Meta, Saudi Aramco, Broadcom, and Tesla — are worth roughly $26 trillion.

Will Tesla join the fold? Predicting a triple merger with SpaceX and xAI

Cathie Wood of ARK Invest believes the number is reasonable considering Tesla’s long-reaching industry ambitions:

“…in the world of AI, what do you have to have to win? You have to have proprietary data, and think about all the proprietary data he has, different kinds of proprietary data. Tesla, the language of the road; Neuralink, multiomics data; nobody else has that data. X, nobody else has that data either. I could see $100 trillion. I think it’s going to happen because of convergence. I think Tesla is the leading candidate [for $100 trillion] for the reason I just said.”

Musk said late last year that all of his companies seem to be “heading toward convergence,” and it’s started to come to fruition. Tesla invested in xAI, as revealed in its Q4 Earnings Shareholder Deck, and SpaceX recently acquired xAI, marking the first step in the potential for a massive umbrella of companies under Musk’s watch.

SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise

Now that it is happening, it seems Musk is even more enthusiastic about a massive valuation that would swell to nearly four-times the value of the top ten most valuable companies in the world currently, as he said on X, the idea of a $100 trillion valuation is “not impossible.”

Tesla is not just a car company. With its many projects, including the launch of Robotaxi, the progress of the Optimus robot, and its AI ambitions, it has the potential to continue gaining value at an accelerating rate.

Musk’s comments show his confidence in Tesla’s numerous projects, especially as some begin to mature and some head toward their initial stages.

Continue Reading