It may have been a shorter work week for you, but it's been dragging on and on for Elon Musk.
After his dramatic, publicly chronicled breakup with President Trump, Musk has thrown himself back into his work as CEO—much to the relief of his shareholders. But it sure looks like he has his work cut out for him to get his array of ventures back on track.
Here’s what you’ve missed if you haven’t caught up with Elon in awhile:
- SpaceX is blowing up, and not in a good way. The company’s Starship rocket exploded during a ground test in Texas this week. Nobody was hurt, but the incident destroyed the stage the next test flight was planned to launch from and raised questions about whether Musk is really going to be making Mars a vacation destination as soon as promised.
- Musk’s artificial intelligence venture xAI is burning money faster than Carrie Bradshaw at the Manolo Blahnick store. The AI startup is spending a staggering $1 billion per month trying to build its AI models, Bloomberg reported this week. To make up for that steep bill, xAI is attempting to raise $9.3 billion in debt and equity by offering investors attractive pricing on its $5 billion debt offering.
- X, formerly known as Twitter, is going through another identity crisis. Is it a social media platform, a payment service, or, as X CEO Linda Yaccarino told the Financial Times, an investing app? “Soon, you’re going to be able to live your whole financial life on the platform,” Yaccarino crowed. While users may someday be able to invest on the platform, the only trade we’ve made on X so far is our precious time and sanity in exchange for memes.
Back to where it all started: Tesla
This weekend will feature the biggest moment of all, and Musk’s magnum opus: the highly anticipated robotaxi rollout in Austin, Texas.
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The pressure is on for Musk, who has been promising a driverless taxi for years, but so far failed to deliver. On top of that, Tesla’s stock is down 15% this year, and it feels like the EV company keeps getting in its own way: This launch will only include ten cars, and won’t feature the CyberCab first displayed in October, but Model Y cars instead.
There’s an existential threat to the event, too: A group of lawmakers from the Texas House of Representatives and Senate penned a letter requesting that Tesla pause its robotaxi launch until September 1, when new autonomous vehicle safety regulations go into effect.
That’s one high-stakes test drive.—LB