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Elon Musk

Elon Musk409 posts

Elon Musk is a South-African born Canadian-American engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur, born in 1971. He was a co-founder of PayPal, which was sold to Ebay for $1.5 billion. He then founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and Tesla Motors. He is chief executive and chief designer at SpaceX and CEO and head of product design at Tesla and chairman of Solar City. Musk purchased Twitter in September 2022.

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30 Apr, 2015

Adds battery into DemandLogic system

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SolarCity incorporates the Tesla battery into its DemandLogic energy storage system to increase the utility cost savings customers can realize from using stored solar electricity. DemandLogic, which is being adopted by several of the largest retail, biotech and Internet companies in the U.S., allows businesses to reduce energy costs by using stored electricity to reduce peak demand, and can also provide backup power during grid outages. DemandLogic’s management software automates the discharge of stored energy to optimize savings on utility demand charges for customers.

6 May, 2015

Reveals timeline for Model 3

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in an earnings call Musk reveals a tentative schedule for the Model 3, which is expected to cost $35,000 before government subsidies, saying the company plans to unveil the model in March 2016, and a sale date of mid 2017, but probably later.

I mean, we are hoping to show off the Model 3 in approximately March of next year. Again, like, don’t hold me to that month, but that’s, like — that’s our aspiration.

28 Jun, 2015

Rocket explodes after launch

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A SpaceX rocket on a mission to resupply the International Space Station explodes two minutes and thirty seconds into its flight from Cape Canaveral Florida. The Falcon 9 is carrying about 5,000 pounds of cargo for the space station’s astronauts, including a docking port that would allow future crew missions to dock with the station more easily. The launch was planned to be been the third attempt to land the first-stage booster safely on a barge in the Atlantic ocean. Initial reports said the vehicle had an “anomaly on ascent”, with Musk reporting that the craft experienced a problem shortly before first-stage shutdown related to an “over-pressure event in the upper-stage liquid oxygen tank”. NASA:

SpaceX has demonstrated extraordinary capabilities in its first six cargo resupply missions to the station, and we know they can replicate that success. We will work with and support SpaceX to assess what happened, understand the specifics of the failure and correct it to move forward. This is a reminder that spaceflight is an incredible challenge, but we learn from each success and each setback.

17 Jul, 2015

Ludicrous Speed upgrade

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Musk announces “Ludicrous Speed,” a $10,000 upgrade for the P85D Model S. The upgrade improves 0-60 time by 10 percent, to 2.8 seconds, with a quarter-mile sprint dropping to 10.9 seconds. The top speed increases to 155 miles per hour, 20 percent faster than on a standard P85D. The Model X will also have Ludicrous Speed as an option, but because that vehicle is 10 percent heavier than the S it will be slower.

20 Jul, 2015

Support strut probably caused failure

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Musk says a support strut holding one of the helium tanks likely fractured near a bolt attach point, and wanted to move to the top of the Falcon 9’s second stage. Several helium tanks, each pressurized to about 5,500 pounds per square inch, are mounted inside the rocket’s second stage liquid oxygen tank. The helium is routed through the second stage’s Merlin engine, where the helium warms up and injected into the rocket’s propellant tanks to pressurize the stage as the launcher burns fuel, keeping the tanks structurally sound. Musk:

It may seem sort of counterintuitive that, as the rocket’s accelerating, that something immersed in the tank would actually want to go up more, but that’s basically what happened. The buoyancy increases proportionate to the G-loading. At approximately 3.2 Gs, this strut holding down one of the helium bottles appears to have snapped, and as a result, releasing a lot of helium into the upper stage oxygen tank and causing an over-pressure event quite quickly…Within the course of a second, this caused enough helium to be released, we believe, to over-pressurize the liquid oxygen tank in the upper stage. You don’t really need to release a lot of helium because there’s only about 2 percent gaseous volume in the stage because the upper stage propellant is not being consumed.

29 Sep, 2015

Model X launch

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Musk launches the Model X SUV. The car can seat seven, has rear upward-opening “falcon” doors, and with the “ludicrous” option can reach 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds. The car also has a “bioweapon defense mode,” an advanced HEPA air filter that will clean any viruses out of the air. The car also has the best safety ratings of any SUV, a result of its low center of gravity and lack of a traditional engine. The Model X 90D costs $132,000, with a range of 257 miles and 0-60 of about 3.7 seconds; the P90D runs $142,000, 250 miles and 3.2-second acceleration.

If there’s ever a bioweapon attack, the safest place is your car. There’s actually a ‘bioweapon defense mode’ right there in the HVAC. We figure you shouldn’t have to think if you’re in an emergency.

 

2 Oct, 2015

Unveils ‘world’s most efficient’ solar panel

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In New York City’s Times Square, Musk and Solar City introduce what they claim is the world’s most efficient rooftop solar panel, achieving a peak efficiency of 22.04%, 30-40% more power than current panels.  The rating is verified by the Renewable Energy Test Center. The panels are cheap  enough that the company can make money off of them even if government tax break policies expire. CTO Rive:

That’s been the singular focus of the company… to continue to get the costs down. I’m really excited about this… it’s the best solar panel on the planet and it empowers us from 2017 and beyond to control our own destiny.

Musk says that third-party panel manufacturers were happy to make a standard efficiency 15% panel year-over-year.

So we thought we had to make our own panels. I like counter-intuitive moves. I thought people would think, at the time, ‘Wow, that’s stupid,’ [which made me think], ‘That’s probably a good idea.’

14 Oct, 2015

Autopilot driverless car update

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Telsa Autopilot imageTesla launches a beta version of Autopilot, which will be available on Thursday. All vehicles from September 2014 will be given the feature. Vehicles will rely on four major sensor systems. Ultrasonic sensors that tell the computer what’s around a 16-ft perimeter of the car; a forward-facing camera that helps determine where the lanes are and what cars are ahead of it, and which can also read speed signs; forward radar that’s used to detect fast-moving objects and which can see through rain, fog, and dust, as well as pulling from GPS and high-precision digital maps. Musk says it’s very important that people “exercise caution” and that they keep their hands on the wheel.

I don’t think that we have anything to worry about with cars driving themselves. They’re not going to take over the world…Each driver is a trainer in how the autopilot should work.

14 Dec, 2015

GQ Interview: Colonize Mars before WWIII

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In an interview with GQ, Musk says a Mars mission is important to help ensure the long term survival of mankind. He says he will announce detailed plans of the Mars Colonisation Transport programme in 2016.

You back up your hard drive…. Maybe we should back up life, too? I think we need to acknowledge that there’s certainly a possibility of a third World War, and if that does occur it could be far worse than anything that’s happened before. Let’s say nuclear weapons are used. I mean, there could be a very powerful social movement that’s anti-technology. There’s also growth in religious extremism. Like, I mean, does ISIS grow…?

22 Dec, 2015

Lands Falcon 9 booster

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SpaceX lands the first stage of its Falcon 9 booster on a pad at Cape Canaveral, eleven minutes after the rocket launched. The control room fills with cheers and chants of “U-S-A, U-S-A”. The space-bound section of the rocket successfully delivers 11 satellites. CEO Musk says he is optimistic that Falcon re-flights will become “pretty straightforward,” and will make sense because of the roughly $60 million cost to build a Falcon 9, only about $200,000 is propellant that can’t be recovered. The bulk of the cost is embedded in the first stage and its nine Merlin engines.

I imagine that we’re going to have a whole fleet of booster rockets accumulating quite rapidly. Then we’ll figure out how to make the reuse as easy as possible, so that really no work is required between reuses, apart from refilling the propellant tanks.

Falcon 9 First Stage Landing | From Helicopter

14 Dec, 2016

Trump meets tech leaders

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Trump and Pence meet with tech industry leaders at Trump Tower. Trump:

This is a truly amazing group of people. I won’t tell you the hundreds of calls we’ve had asking to come to this meeting. I’m here to help you folks do well. And you’re doing well right now and I’m very honored by the bounce. They’re all talking about the bounce. So right now everybody in this room has to like me — at least a little bit — but we’re going to try and have that bounce continue.

24 Aug, 2018

Musk not taking Tesla private after all

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After a board meeting on Thursday, Musk announces that he will not be taking Tesla private, after all.

In talking to our public investors, most were supportive of optimizing for long-term value creation over quarterly earnings. This was also a factor in remaining public.

21 Jul, 2022

Tesla board investigates Musk’s glass house purchases

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Tesla’s board is investigating Musk for possible misuse of company resources in a project to build himself a mansion near the company’s Texas headquarters. The project involves a glass-walled building near Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin, of which some renderings apparently show a residential area with bedrooms, bathrooms and a kitchen next to a body of water, with the factory in the background. The board’s probe comes after Tesla’s finance and internal audit teams became aware of an order placed by a Musk advisor (also being probed) for millions of dollars worth of specialized glass, and is focusing on whether executives in Musk’s inner circle used the company’s clout to obtain the glass for a personal project of Musk’s while a global supply chain crisis made the glass more difficult to obtain normally.

25 Sep, 2022

Falcon 9 launches 52 Starlink satellites to orbit

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SpaceX launches 52 Starlink satellites to orbit, on a Falcon 9 rocket. The launch was SpaceX’s 43rd orbital mission this year. Viewers close by the launchpad witnessed Falcon 9’s first stage falling back to Earth for a soft landing atop the SpaceX droneship, A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean. The company has already sent nearly 3,400 Starlinks into space and has a plan to bring thousands more aloft.

Iran blocks SpaceX Starlink website

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The government of Iran blocks SpaceX’s Starlink website following Elon Musk activating Starlink for Iranians.

French feminist: Elon Musk is ‘one the greatest environmental killers of all time’

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Sandrine Rousseau, a Greens party MP, who has been called ‘the fiercest feminist in France’, says Musk is the model of white alpha males responsible for human suffering and climate disaster.

Elon Musk is the archetype of the conquering male entrepreneur who should be considered one of the greatest environmental killers of all time.

Rousseau, 50, has made international headlines this year with calls for an end to barbecues as a symbol of world-destroying “virility” and for the creation of a criminal offence of failing to share housework.

Musk posts photo with Grimes: ‘No way to prove we’re living in a simulation’

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Musk posts a picture of himself with former girlfriend Grimes, in costumes they donned for a Saturday Night Live episode in May 2021. Musk contrasts the picture with one of animated Mario and Princess Peach sitting at the edge of a castle roof, with the caption:

Of course, there’s no way to prove we’re living in a simulation

Musk has talked about the possibility of humans living inside a simulation previously, on The Joe Rogan Experience Podcast in 2018, and in November 2021. The simulation hypothesis is promoted by scientists. including astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.

26 Sep, 2022

One million Starlink terminals manufactured

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After its recent launch of 52 Starlink satellites, Musk announces that SpaceX has manufactured one million Starlink terminals. The one-million milestone has been achieved less than two years after Starlink began taking pre-orders for the satellite broadband service in February 2021.

Starlink now over 1M user terminals manufactured

Report: Tesla China to hit over 80k deliveries this month

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A report from China says Tesla is targeting deliveries of about 80,000 to 90,000 vehicles domestically this month, despite insurance data from previous weeks suggesting that Tesla seemed to be having delivery challenges in the country.  The report says that shorter waiting times mean scalpers who had bought the cars in hope of a large profit will now be undercut as Tesla customers wait for a possible October price cut. Estimates in China reportedly suggest that Tesla will reduce its Model 3 prices by RMB 20,000 ($2,700) and the Model Y by RMB 28,000 ($3,900). Report:

There is a tradition of price reduction: Historically, Tesla has been ahead of the market regardless of whether the price has been raised or lowered. There is room for price reduction: Tesla’s 22Q2 single-vehicle profit is 8,000+ US dollars, and its 22Q3 single-vehicle net profit hits 13,000 US dollars, equivalent to 80,000 yuan, which is extremely profitable.