Elon Musk
Tesla proves once more that its factories are its best product
Tesla’s factories are the company’s biggest products–literally.
Tesla’s factories are not just the company’s biggest assets. They are also its best product. This is, at least, as per Tesla China’s recent post on social media platform Weibo.
Tesla China’s Weibo post was shared to celebrate Giga Shanghai’s changeover to the new Model Y, which is currently being delivered to consumers globally.
Tesla’s Best Product
In its post, Tesla China noted that Gigafactory Shanghai was able to complete its new Model Y production ramp up in just six weeks. This is a new record for Tesla, and it speaks to the company’s intense focus on efficiency. Tesla also highlighted the Cybercab’s production line in its Weibo post, stating that the upcoming vehicle will see “ultra-high levels of automation” when it gets produced.
“The factory is Tesla’s best product—Tesla Shanghai Super Factory completed the new Model Y production capacity ramp-up within 6 weeks, setting a record for the company’s fastest model production speed. In the future, the North American factory is expected to roll out a Tesla self-driving electric Cybercab every 5 seconds to subvert the vehicle production and manufacturing model. Adhering to the first principle of car manufacturing is Tesla’s core advantage that is difficult to copy,” Tesla China wrote in its post.


Tesla’s Factories
Tesla’s factories are among the best in the world. Tesla only operates four vehicle factories for its entire vehicle lineup today, which is quite impressive for a company that has so far sold up to 1.8 million vehicles per year. Tesla is expected to improve its factories’ output with its future vehicles as well, with Elon Musk stating during the company’s Q1 2025 All-Hands Meeting that the Cybercab’s factory will look more like a high-speed consumer electronics line than a car production line. These innovations, Musk noted, should allow Tesla to ramp the Cybercab’s production to 2 million units per year.
Musk highlighted the importance of Tesla’s factories in the first quarter earnings call as well. While discussing the Cybercab’s line, Musk noted that with Tesla, the factory is as much a product as its cars. “The factory is the product as much as the car is the product. So, this really is the first principles approach to manufacturing that will ultimately allow us, I think, to… achieve a cycle time, meaning a unit every five seconds or less, off a single line,” Musk stated.
Cybertruck
Tesla Cybertruck’s newest trim is nearing its first deliveries
Tesla Cybertruck’s newest trim level is nearing its first deliveries just a few months after being offered for an incredible deal.
Back in February, Tesla officially launched a new trim of the Cybertruck, the All-Wheel-Drive, starting at just $59,990. It was a lot of truck for the money, especially considering what it offered the Rear-Wheel-Drive variant for last year, which was a total flop.
The $59,990 price that was offered initially was a deal due to its 325-mile range rating, powered tonneau, three bed outlets, Powershare capability, coil springs with adaptive damping for a refined suspension feel, Steer-by-Wire and four-wheel steering, a 6′ x 4′ composite bed, towing capacity of 7,500 pounds, and a powered frunk.
Tesla is now nearing deliveries of this trim, according to watcher Sawyer Merritt, as Tesla has officially started assigning VINs to people who ordered the vehicle initially:
I can confirm that Tesla has officially started assigning VINs to people who initially ordered the $59,990 Cybertruck Dual-Motor AWD, which means first deliveries should start in the coming weeks!
• 325 mile range
• 7,500 lb towing capacity
• 0-60mph: 4.1s
• Bed with… pic.twitter.com/PQwVYbZf6j— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) May 24, 2026
Earlier this month, we reported on units of the trim being spotted outside Gigafactory Texas by Joe Tegtmeyer.
Tesla Giga Texas buzzing as new Cybertruck appears to enter production
This Cybertruck trim was interesting because it was released basically out of nowhere, priced incredibly well, and gathered many orders in a small amount of time. However, CEO Elon Musk noted just days afterward that the vehicle would only be priced at this bargain level for ten days.
Tesla fans were not happy.
Awful way to treat customers – particularly when they already sent out a marketing email announcing the $59,990 truck…with zero mention of it being a limited-time offer.
— Ryan McCaffrey (@DMC_Ryan) February 24, 2026
However, the issues with the pricing strategy have blown over since the February unveiling event, and now that deliveries are near, Tesla fans are anticipating the truck making its way to their driveways soon.
The truck is currently priced at $69,990, and deliveries for new orders are slated for between August and September 2026.
Elon Musk
NASA just gave SpaceX more crew missions because Boeing can’t certify
NASA has filed a procurement notice announcing its intent to add six post-certification missions to SpaceX’s existing Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract. The agency said it would order up to three of those missions immediately upon adding them to the contract, with the remaining three available as needed through the end of the International Space Station’s planned operations in 2030.
The reason for the expansion is straightforward. NASA cited recently shortened ISS mission durations, technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing, the allocation of missions between Boeing and SpaceX, and the ongoing technical challenges of maintaining a reliable crew transportation capability as the driving factors behind the decision. Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has still not been certified for crewed flights, and a cargo-only Starliner mission was not included on NASA’s most recent mission manifest. With Boeing effectively sidelined for the foreseeable future, SpaceX is the only American company capable of rotating crews to the station.
The history behind this contract tells the fuller story of how SpaceX got here. NASA originally awarded SpaceX its Commercial Crew contract in 2014 for $2.6 billion. In 2022 NASA modified the contract to add five missions covering Crew-10 through Crew-14, worth $1.436 billion, bringing the total contract value at that point to $4.9 billion. The recent May 18 filing by NASA extends that runway further, with Crew-12 currently docked at the station and Crew-13 assigned and targeting a mid-September 2026 launch.
According to a report by SpaceNews, NASA stated in its filing: “It is necessary to award additional PCMs to SpaceX given the recently shortened ISS mission durations, technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing, the allocation of missions between Boeing and SpaceX, NASA’s projections for when an alternative crew transportation system may become available, and the ongoing technical challenges of maintaining a reliable capability for crewed flights to ISS.”
No dollar value for the new six missions has been publicly confirmed yet, but based on the 2022 precedent of roughly $287 million per mission, the new block could represent close to $1.7 billion in additional contract value. With SpaceX simultaneously preparing Starship as NASA’s Artemis lunar lander, filing its S-1 for a June IPO, and now absorbing more ISS crew rotation work, the company’s role as the primary contractor for American human spaceflight is no longer a matter of circumstance. It is NASA policy.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk called it Epic: The full story of SpaceX’s Starship Flight 12
Starship V3 reached space, survived reentry, and proved it can fly with engines out.
After two scrubbed attempts, SpaceX launched Starship V3 on Friday, May 22 from the brand new Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas, completing the most technically complex test flight the program has attempted and moving the bar in ways that matter for everything from commercial satellites to the first human Moon landing since 1972.
The Super Heavy booster lost an engine early during ascent and several more failed during its boostback burn, sending the stage into an off-nominal descent that ended in a hard landing in the Gulf of Mexico. SpaceX had planned a soft splashdown rather than a tower catch on this first V3 flight, so losing the booster was expected to be acceptable within the test parameters.
Ship 39 told a different story. The Starship upper stage reached its planned sub-orbital trajectory despite losing one of its vacuum Raptor engines, with the remaining engines compensating for the loss and keeping the vehicle on course. The spacecraft then survived atmospheric reentry, completed its belly-flip maneuver, and made a controlled upright splashdown in the Indian Ocean west of Australia.
Watch Starship’s twelfth flight test https://t.co/caRB1thMlg
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 22, 2026
The payload test is where Flight 12 separated itself from every previous Starship mission. SpaceX deployed 22 objects including 20 Starlink simulator satellites sized like next-generation V3 Starlink units, plus two specially modified satellites equipped with cameras that scanned Starship’s heat shield from orbit and transmitted imagery back to operators.
The broader significance of what was tested on Friday goes well beyond one mission. Every future Starship deployment, whether it is a batch of operational Starlink V3 satellites, cargo bound for the Moon, or eventually crew headed to Mars, depends on SpaceX being able to inspect and certify the heat shield quickly between flights. The camera-equipped satellites deployed on Flight 12 are the first step toward making that inspection process automated and data-driven rather than manual and time-consuming. If SpaceX can scan the heat shield from orbit after every reentry and flag damaged or missing tiles before the vehicle even lands, it fundamentally changes the turnaround time between flights. For a program that needs to refuel Starship in orbit using ten or more tanker launches before a single Moon mission can depart, launch cadence is everything. Friday’s payload test can be seen as building the maintenance infrastructure for rapid reusability.
Elon Musk took to X, following the successful tests, and noting: “Congratulations @SpaceX team on an epic first Starship V3 launch and landing!” “You scored a goal for humanity.”
The stakes behind that goal are concrete. NASA has selected Starship as the Human Landing System for Artemis IV, targeting a crewed Moon landing in 2028, and SpaceX has yet to demonstrate a full orbital flight, in-orbit refueling, or docking with an Orion capsule. Flight 12 proved V3 can fly, survive reentry, and deploy payloads under engine-out conditions. That is the foundation everything else has to be built on, and with a SpaceX IPO targeting June 2026, the timing of that proof of concept could not have been more useful.