News
Twitter hits all-time high usage as #RIPTwitter trends: Elon Musk
Following the offloading of roughly half of Twitter’s workforce, Elon Musk sent a message to the company’s remaining employees asking them if they were willing to commit to an “extremely hardcore” work culture that involves “working long hours at high intensity.” Musk’s message noted that Twitter’s remaining employees could either commit or take three months’ worth of severance pay and leave.
Reports have indicated that a lot of Twitter’s remaining employees opted for the latter option, thereby departing from the company. Thus, on Thursday, an exodus of sorts reportedly happened on Twitter, with some ex-employees stating that some crucial parts of the company have now become unstaffed.
A source reportedly familiar with the matter later informed Reuters that on Thursday evening, the version of the Twitter app being used by employees was already showing down. The ex-employee reportedly also estimated that the public version of Twitter was at risk of breaking during the night. Amidst these reports, the hashtag #RIPTwitter rose to the top of the platform’s US trends.
Elon Musk, for his part, responded to the trend with posts joking about Twitter’s supposed death. Musk also seemed to mock himself for overpaying for the social media company, noting that a great way to “make a small fortune in social media” is to “start with a large one.” Later on, Musk noted that Twitter, amidst the rise of reports predicting its supposed end, ended up achieving an all-time high in usage. “And… we just hit another all-time high in Twitter usage lol,” Musk wrote.
Musk also suggested that despite the attrition in the company, he is not extremely worried about Twitter’s future. This was because the employees that stayed and committed were the company’s best. “The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried,” Musk noted. Musk’s sentiments seem to be quite accurate, at least, as Twitter continued to run without any issues despite the prediction of the ex-employee to Reuters.
Musk may be the target of much derision over his current decisions surrounding Twitter, but he has gained some notable supporters. Among these is Bill Gurley, general partner at venture-capital firm Benchmark, who noted that those rooting for Twitter to crash and burn today should prepare for disappointment.
“One of the reasons companies routinely do 3 layoffs instead of one is they are almost all afraid to ‘cut too much.’ They fear ‘hitting bone.’ But they VASTLY underestimate how resilient companies actually are. Companies endure. This is also why everyone rooting for Twitter to ‘functionally fail’ are going to be disappointed. The company had 1,000 employees in 2012 and had 200 [million monthly active users]. And the systems are way better now. If they go back to that count they will survive. You are NOT seeing the ‘fail whale,” Gurley noted.
Musk has responded to Gurley’s insights on Twitter, noting that while he does not want to jinx anything, there’s a chance for Twitter to survive its current challenges. “Don’t wanna jinx it, but there’s a chance we can keep Twitter alive,” Musk responded.
Don’t hesitate to contact us with news tips. Just send a message to simon@teslarati.com to give us a heads up.
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.
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.
Using TBC tunnels to transport freight.
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! https://t.co/VV0phWK4fc
— The Boring Company (@boringcompany) October 19, 2026
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.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk will give ‘every kid in America’ a SpaceX share in 2027
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:
Next year, I will give one of my SpaceX shares to every kid in America.
This will be the first of many.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
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.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk reveals why Boring Co’s biggest East Coast project never happened
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.
@cybrtrkguy Permits were impossible to get
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 19, 2026
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.
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.