During the height of the controversy surrounding Elon Musk’s turbulent acquisition of Twitter last year, social media platform Mastodon emerged as the go-to platform for those who wish to no longer associate with the notorious blue bird. But just months later, it appears that Mastodon is seeing its user base drop — by quite a lot.
In a way, Mastodon was promoted by users who are generally anti-Elon Musk as a way to interact online without the toxicity of the Tesla CEO or Twitter’s general users. With rumors later flying that Twitter was about to shut down due to Musk’s mismanagement, the user “exodus” to Mastodon continued.
By December, Mastodon was featured in numerous mainstream media coverage due to its rapid rise in users. By late December, reports highlighted that Mastodon’s monthly active users had exploded to 2.5 million users between the months of October and November. Prominent people such as politicians, reporters, and organizations also set up camp in the new social media platform.
But based on Mastodon’s own public API, it appears that the platform has not been able to keep up its growth. Over the past two months, Mastodon’s monthly active users dropped to less than 1.4 million. This represents a 44% decrease from its highs that were achieved just a couple of months ago.
As noted in a Thurrott report, the decline of Mastodon’s monthly active users does not seem to be unexpected at all. After rising from 380,000 users to 2.5 million in just two months, Mastodon’s active users dropped by over 30% the following month.
There may be a few good reasons behind the Mastodon “exodus” that is happening today. A Wired report highlighted that many newcomers to Mastodon have complained that the platform was difficult to use. Add to the fact that Elon Musk’s Twitter seems to be finding its footing despite all the drama from several months ago, and it seems like some users who joined Mastodon to protest the Tesla CEO’s takeover are coming back to Twitter.
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News
Tesla appears to have teased a long-awaited Model Y trim for a Friday launch
The company posted it with its Europe & Middle East account, and it appears to be a Model Y Performance, which has been spotted testing at the famed Nurburgring in Germany.

Tesla appears to have teased a long-awaited Model Y trim for a launch on Friday.
The company posted it with its Europe & Middle East account, and it appears to be a Model Y Performance, which has been spotted testing at the famed Nurburgring in Germany.
Tesla has teased a video of the Model Y Performance from its European X account
We’ve been waiting for this trim of the Model Y for a very long timepic.twitter.com/izXviZKs4X
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 27, 2025
The Model Y Performance became a big-time hit after it packed the family-style interior with lightning-fast acceleration, speed, and handling.
As Tesla transitioned the Model Y into the updated “Juniper” design, the company took its time to create an even better vehicle with the new Performance configuration.
It has surely taken its time, but the vehicle appears to have undergone some exterior changes to enhance aerodynamics, handling, and overall performance.
We recently went into what was different about the test units spotted at Nurburgring in an article, but we’ll also list them here:
- New 21″ wheels
- All black headliner, a big change that was included in the Model Y L, the first time a Model Y has had that option
- Updated brakes
- Bucket seats that appear to be similar to the new Model Y L in China
- New Carbon Fiber Spoiler
- Performance Badging
- Changes to both the front and rear bumper
- Suspension with Adaptive Dampers
Tesla Model Y Performance zips around Nurburgring with new features
It does not seem like there’s much else it could be, but it is important to note that Tesla has been developing a handful of affordable models. There is a possibility that Tesla could launch one of these on Friday, but it seems unlikely.
The affordable models will likely be coming to the United States or China before they would in Europe.
They would be developed at Gigafactory Texas or Gigafactory Shanghai. The company stated in its Q2 Earnings Shareholder Deck that it had continued to expand its vehicle offerings and successfully manufactured the first builds of a more affordable model in June.
Volume production is planned for the second half of 2025.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship Flight 10 was so successful, it’s breaking the anti-Musk narrative
That’s all the proof one could need about the undeniable success of Starship Flight 10.

Starship Flight 10 was a huge success for SpaceX. When both the Super Heavy booster and the Starship Upper Stage successfully landed on their designated splashdown zones, the space community was celebrating.
The largest and most powerful rocket in the world had successfully completed its tenth test flight. And this time around, there were no rapid unscheduled disassemblies during the mission.
As per SpaceX in a statement following Flight 10, “every major objective was met, providing critical data to inform designs of the next generation Starship and Super Heavy.” The private space enterprise also stated that Flight 10 provided valuable data by stressing the limits of Starship’s capabilities.
With all of Flight 10’s mission objectives met, one would think that it would be pretty easy to cover the story of Starship’s successful tenth test flight. But that’s where one would be wrong, because Elon Musk companies, whether it be Tesla or SpaceX or xAI, tend to attract negative slant from mainstream media outlets.
This was in full force with Starship Flight 10’s coverage. Take the BBC’s Facebook post about the fight test, which read “Elon Musk’s giant rocket, earmarked for use in a 2027 mission to the Moon, has had multiple catastrophic failures in previous launches.” CNN was more direct with its slant, writing “SpaceX’s troubled Starship prototype pulls off successful flight after months of explosive mishaps” on its headline.
While some media outlets evidently adopted a negative slant towards Starship’s Flight 10 results, several other media sources actually published surprisingly positive articles about the successful test flight. The most notable of which is arguably the New York Times, which featured a headline that read “SpaceX’s Giant Mars Rocket Completes Nearly Flawless Test Flight.” Fox News also ran with a notably positive headline that read “SpaceX succeeds at third Starship test flight attempt after multiple scrubs.”
Having covered Elon Musk-related companies for the better part of a decade now, I have learned that mainstream coverage of any of his companies tends to be sprinkled with varying degrees of negative slant. The reasons behind this may never be fully explained, but it is just the way things are. This is why, when milestones such as Starship’s Flight 10 actually happen and mainstream media coverage becomes somewhat objective, I can’t help but be amazed.
After all, it takes one heck of a company led by one heck of a leader to force objectivity on an entity that has proven subjective over the years. And that, if any, is all the proof one could need about the undeniable success of Starship Flight 10.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s Elon Musk takes another shot at Waymo’s capabilities stemming from LiDAR
“LiDAR also does not work well in snow, rain or dust due to reflection scatter. That’s why Waymos stop working in any heavy precipitation.”

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has frequently expressed his opinions on LiDAR in the past, but in recent days, the EV maker’s frontman has continued to discuss the weaknesses in the technology and why his company has relied on cameras.
He also mentioned the suite’s limits on Waymo’s capabilities.
Tesla completely abandoned using radar alongside its camera suite a few years ago, something it referred to as “Tesla Vision” at the time. For its vehicles, it has only used cameras since this transition, and Musk has never once shied away from this strategy.
Earlier this week, he discussed the reliance of LiDAR and radar by other companies:
“Lidar and radar reduce safety due to sensor contention. If lidars/radars disagree with cameras, which one wins?
This sensor ambiguity causes increased, not decreased, risk. That’s why Waymos can’t drive on highways.
We turned off radars in Teslas to increase safety. Cameras ftw.”
Elon Musk argues lidar and radar make self driving cars more dangerous
He continued with this narrative again and mentioned Waymo specifically on a second occasion.
Musk’s focus this time was on Waymo vehicles and their capabilities in adverse weather, specifically snow, rain, or even dust storms, and how LiDAR struggles to navigate in these conditions.
He said:
“LiDAR also does not work well in snow, rain or dust due to reflection scatter. That’s why Waymos stop working in any heavy precipitation. As I have said many times, there is a role for LiDAR in some circumstances and I personally oversaw the development of LiDAR for the SpaceX Dragon docking with Space Station. I am well aware of its strengths and weaknesses.”
LiDAR also does not work well in snow, rain or dust due to reflection scatter. That’s why Waymos stop working in any heavy precipitation.
As I have said many times, there is a role for LiDAR in some circumstances and I personally oversaw the development of LiDAR for the SpaceX…— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 26, 2025
Tesla’s approach is significantly different than most companies. Waymo, Motional, Aurora, and Zoox all use LiDAR for their self-driving programs, while Tesla continues to rely on its camera-only approach.
Musk even said that Model S and Model X utilized a Tesla-developed high-resolution radar, but it could not “compare to passive optical (cameras), so we turned it off.”
Tesla developed high resolution radar and the hardware is actually present in Model S & X, but it just can’t compare to passive optical (cameras), so we turned it off.
As a side note, any military systems that rely on radar “stealth” technology are toast in a modern conflict,…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 26, 2025
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