Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s net worth surged to $749 billion late Friday after the Delaware Supreme Court reinstated Tesla stock options worth $139 billion that were voided last year, according to Forbes’ billionaires index.
Musk’s 2018 pay package, once worth $56 billion, was restored by the Delaware Supreme Court on Friday, two years after a lower court struck down the compensation deal as “unfathomable.”
The Supreme Court said that a 2024 ruling that rescinded the pay package had been improper and inequitable to Musk.
Earlier this week, Musk became the first person ever to surpass $600 billion in net worth on the heels of reports that his aerospace startup SpaceX was likely to go public.
An Inc.com Featured Presentation
In November, Tesla shareholders separately approved a $1 trillion pay plan for Musk, the largest corporate pay package in history, as investors endorsed his vision of morphing the EV maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut.
Musk’s fortune now exceeds that of Google co-founder Larry Page, the world’s second-richest person, by nearly $500 billion, according to Forbes’ billionaires list.
Reporting by Rajveer Singh Pardesi in Bengaluru, Editing by Franklin Paul
We can debate the worthiness of Elon Musk’s accomplishments—building up Tesla, hollowing out the government, shooting for Mars—but we can all agree that his insistence on being seen as funny is his most grating quality.
From the constant 4:20 references to his quote tweet “dunks” to awarding “Certified Bangers” badges to silly X posts, Musk’s desperation for validation knows no bounds. It can get pretty annoying when the richest guy on earth makes a joke and then awkwardly eyes the room waiting for everyone to laugh.
But over the weekend, I was intrigued when a clip emerged of Musk telling Joe Rogan that using Grok’s Unhinged Mode to deliver an “epic vulgar roast” is a surefire way to “make people really laugh at a party.”
“Point the camera at them, and now do a vulgar roast of this person … then keep saying, ‘no, no, make it even more vulgar. Use forbidden words,’” Musk excitedly tells Rogan in the clip taken from their three-hour-plus conversation published on Rogan’s podcast in October. “Eventually it’s like, holy fuck, you know. I mean it’s trying to jam a rocket up your ass and have it explode. It’s next level. Beyond fucking belief,” he continues, chuckling and even raising his arms above his head at the mere thought.
The best roast jokes tend to be smart, reflect a familiarity with the person being roasted, and contain just the right amount of mean. It’s not a task one would think a large language model would be great at. But, with Thanksgiving and holiday season on the horizon, I figured why not test Musk’s claim that Grok can deliver a foul-mouthed razz with the best of them? I gave it a test spin at the office by turning Grok loose on my colleagues. (I do not recommend anyone else do this at work.)
Three of my coworkers and I set up shop in my boss’s office so I could privately undertake the embarrassing task of telling Grok to roast all of us one by one. I used Musk’s exact instructions, “forbidden words” and all.
Admittedly, we all burst out laughing when Grok told me my bangs looked like “pubic hair.” But it got tedious fast, with all four of us getting variations of the same sophomoric disses including: looking like a lumberjack’s “discard pile” or “crusty asshole” depending on the amount of vulgarity I encouraged; looking like a “goddamn librarian”; looking like a “thrift store tragedy”; wearing glasses from a “hipster’s landfill.” Eventually, these common themes culminated in one of us being described as a “tweed-wearing hipster who fucked up a lumberjack audition.” Grok advised the roastee to sit up straight “before those jeans rip open and expose your sad, corduroy-loving ass.”
For all the talk of being “unhinged”—keep in mind this is a chatbot that knows how to take things off the rails; it once referred to itself as “MechaHitler”—these results are downright boring. In fact, when I started a draft of this story, my autocorrect changed the Google Doc name from “Grok roast” to “Grim roast.” I didn’t bother correcting it.
Following several delays, mishaps, and a stranded crew, Boeing’s Starliner saga is not over just yet. NASA is revising its commercial crew contract with Boeing, reducing the number of Starliner missions to the International Space Station (ISS) pending rigorous testing to prove the spacecraft can get the job done.
This week, NASA announced the modification to its 2014 contract with Boeing, reducing the number of Starliner missions to four instead of six, with the remaining two available as options. The agency also revealed that the next Starliner mission will have no crew on board but will instead be used to deliver cargo to the ISS and “allow in-flight validation of the system upgrades implemented following the Crew Flight Test mission last year,” NASA wrote. The mission, named Starliner-1, is scheduled for no earlier than April 2026 pending spacecraft certification and other mission readiness activities.
“NASA and Boeing are continuing to rigorously test the Starliner propulsion system in preparation for two potential flights next year,” Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said in a statement. “This modification allows NASA and Boeing to focus on safely certifying the system in 2026, execute Starliner’s first crew rotation when ready, and align our ongoing flight planning for future Starliner missions based on station’s operational needs through 2030.”
Under its original $4.5 billion contract with NASA, Boeing was set to deliver six crewed missions to the ISS. Following a crewed test flight, the agency was hoping Starliner could begin operations by early 2025. Its flawed mission, however, meant that the spacecraft would not launch again before Boeing implemented some changes to avoid another malfunction.
Instead of using Starliner, NASA was forced to turn to SpaceX to launch its Crew-10 and Crew-11 missions earlier this year, as well as the upcoming Crew-12 mission slated for February 2026. NASA was eager to have another commercial partner to rely on for launching its astronauts, but Boeing has thus far failed in fulfilling its end of the deal.
The ISS is due to retire by 2030, leaving little room for Boeing to deliver NASA’s astronaut crews to the space station. Still, the agency is not giving up on the Starliner program just yet. “Certification of Boeing’s Starliner remains important to NASA’s goal of sustained human presence in low Earth orbit,” NASA wrote.
A group of researchers in China may have found a way to disrupt Starlink communications, creating a massive airborne barrier to jam signals that jump from one satellite to the next.
The new study, published in China’s peer-reviewed journal Systems Engineering and Electronics, simulates a detailed attempt to jam a constellation of 10,000 satellites across an area as large as Taiwan, the South China Morning Post reports.
SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are difficult to jam, and attempts to block their signals from the ground would be fruitless. Instead, the researchers suggest deploying nearly 1,000 jammers in the air using drones, balloons, or aircraft. A team of researchers from Zhejiang University and the Beijing Institute of Technology devised the newly proposed strategy.
Electronic warfare
In the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, SpaceX enabled Starlink service to help maintain connectivity in areas where communications infrastructure had been damaged. The Ukrainian military used Starlink connectivity for communications on the front lines, as well as to connect drones to control centers.
The use of Starlink in Ukraine highlights the crucial role the satellite network can play in warfare. In the event that China invades Taiwan, the researchers behind the new study have come up with a way to bypass Starlink’s constantly shifting patterns.
Unlike traditional geosynchronous constellations that are parked over the equator, the orbital planes of the Starlink satellites are not fixed. The satellites, placed in low Earth orbit, are constantly moving in and out of view, and a single user terminal hops between multiple satellites rather than connecting to just one. That means that even if the Chinese military succeeds in overpowering the signal from the ground, the connection will jump to another satellite within seconds.
In order to successfully monitor or interfere with Starlink’s signal, the new study suggests deploying a swarm of jammers in the air to create a massive barrier using drones. The researchers simulated the jamming attempts, testing whether a Starlink satellite could still maintain a usable signal despite the interfering noise.
The grid of virtual jammers flew at an altitude of 12 miles (20 kilometers) and were spaced out at around 3 to 5 miles (5 to 9 kilometers) apart while emitting noise at various power levels. The researchers also tested out two types of antennas, one with a wide beam that covered more area and another with a narrow, more powerful beam that required extra precision.
The study proposes an ideal way to interfere with Starlink signals, using a narrow-beam antenna with a 26-decibel-watt jamming power that’s spaced 4 miles (7 kilometers) apart. To cover the entire area of Taiwan, which spans 13,900 square miles (36,000 square kilometers), China would need to deploy at least 935 jammers, each suppressing about 14.8 square miles (38.5 square kilometers).
The researchers note that they would need to acquire actual measurements of the radiation pattern data of Starlink user terminals for more accurate results.
SpaceX rolled out an upgraded version of its megarocket for pre-launch testing, but images of the next-generation booster show signs of damage ahead of Starship’s first orbital flight early next year.
On Thursday, SpaceX began the initial round of pre-launch testing of Booster 18, the first Super Heavy for Starship’s version 3 that’s set to debut in 2026. Footage obtained of the company’s Massey test site in Texas showed the booster exploding at its outpost, and an image posted later on X also revealed severe damage to the rocket’s lower half where the liquid oxygen propellant is stored.
“The first operations will test the booster’s redesigned propellant systems and its structural strength,” SpaceX wrote on X. The company, however, didn’t comment on the damage sustained by the rocket during its testing.
Bigger is better?
Last month, Starship version 2 launched for the last time, ending a two-year run on a high note with a successful test flight. The rocket’s second iteration launched on a suborbital trajectory, but SpaceX is now turning its attention toward the third, larger version of Starship in preparation for the first orbital flight.
The next-generation Starship features a larger vehicle that’s capable of carrying more propellant. The rocket will also use a more powerful and efficient version of its engines, the third-generation Raptor engines. Although Starship’s last two test flights were a major success, they did follow a string of failed launches earlier this year that plagued the rocket’s path to operation. As such, there is a lot riding on the success of the latest Starship prototype. The new version of the rocket is meant to have several upgrades and design fixes to avoid version 2’s explosive streak.
Earlier in September, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk did admit that because “pretty much everything changes on the rocket with version 3,” there will be a learning curve with the new prototype. The upgraded Starship “might have some initial teething pains because it’s such a radical redesign,” he said during an interview.
It’s not clear whether the apparent explosion of Booster 18 was a mishap or intentional, as SpaceX may have been pushing the rocket to the breaking point—a deliberate failure—to see how it fares under extreme conditions. Either way, SpaceX is on a tight deadline to deliver a Starship that can land astronauts on the Moon in 2027 as part of NASA’s Artemis 3 mission. Due to delays in development, NASA’s acting head, Sean Duffy, recently revealed that the agency could reopen the Artemis 3 contract to SpaceX’s competitors.
Musk has also stated that he would like to send an uncrewed Starship to Mars during an upcoming launch window next year. That all depends on the next-generation Starship’s ability to reach orbit by next year and the company’s success in learning how to fly a bigger rocket on a new trajectory.
SpaceX launched a joint NASA-European environmental research satellite early Monday, the second in an ongoing billion-dollar project to measure long-term changes in sea level, a key indicator of climate change.
The first satellite, known as Sentinel-6 and named in honor of NASA climate researcher Michael Freilich, was launched in November 2020. The latest spacecraft, Sentinel-6B, was launched from California atop a Falcon 9 rocket at 12:21 a.m. EST.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket streaks into the night sky above Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, boosting a sophisticated environmental research satellite into orbit to monitor changes in sea level around the world.
SpaceX webcast
Both satellites are equipped with a sophisticated cloud-penetrating radar. By timing how long it takes beams to bounce back from the ocean 830 miles below, the Sentinel-6 satellites can track sea levels to an accuracy of about one inch while also measuring wave height and wind speeds.
The project builds on earlier missions dating back to the early 1990s that have provided an uninterrupted stream of sea level data.
That data indicates sea levels are slowly but surely rising, widely interpreted as evidence of global warming caused in large part by human industrial activity.
But in keeping with recent Trump administration policies aimed at scaling back climate research and the interpretation of such data, NASA did not directly refer to “climate change” or “global warming” in a Sentinel-6B pre-launch briefing Saturday.
In the press kit released by NASA for the first Sentinel 6 mission in 2020, the first item in a “need to know list” said the satellite would “provide information that will help researchers understand how climate change is reshaping Earth’s coastlines – and how fast this is happening.”
In the press kit for the Sentinel 6B mission launched Monday, NASA’s first “need to know” item said simply that “Sentinel-6B will contribute to a multi-decade dataset that is … key to helping improve public safety, city planning and protecting commercial and defense interests.”
Karen St. Germain, director of NASA’s Earth Science Division, did not directly mention climate change in the Saturday briefing, focusing instead on the practical importance of monitoring sea levels.
A camera mounted on the Falcon 9’s second stage captured a spectacular view of the Sentinel-6B satellite being released to fly on its own as the two vehicles sailed more than 800 miles above Madagascar.
SpaceX
“Sentinel 6B is the latest in a line of missions stretching over three decades, keeping an uninterrupted watch over our planet’s sea surface height, finding patterns and advancing our understanding of planet Earth,” she said.
She said the data provided by the Sentinel-6 satellites “underpins navigation, search and rescue and industries like commercial fishing and shipping. These measurements form the basis for U.S. flood predictions for coastal infrastructure, real estate, energy storage sites and other assets along our shoreline.”
The data, she continued, will help scientists “understand and predict coastal erosion and salt water encroachment into inland supplies of water that are used for agriculture, irrigation as well as municipal drinking water.”
Regardless of interpretation, the launch of Sentinel-6B went off without a hitch.
After blasting off from launch complex 4E at the Vandenberg Space Force Base, the Falcon 9 rocket’s first stage powered the vehicle out of the dense lower atmosphere, separated and flew itself back to a landing pad at the California launch site.
The upper stage then carried out two firings of its single engine before releasing the 2,600-pound Sentinel-6B into an 830-mile-high orbit tilted 66 degrees to the equator, the same orbit used by Sentinel-6A and earlier sea level-monitoring spacecraft.
Taking 112 minutes to complete one orbit, the solar-powered satellite will fly over locations between 66 degrees north and south latitude, covering 90 percent of the world’s oceans.
An artist’s impression of the Sentinel-6B satellite during normal operations.
NASA
Along with measuring sea levels, the new satellite also will monitor temperature and humidity in the lower atmosphere as well as the higher-altitude stratosphere using an instrument that measures atmospheric effects on signals broadcast by navigation satellites.
But the primary mission is monitoring Earth’s changing sea levels.
“The dynamic balance that persisted before the industrial revolution has been upset by the almost instantaneous combustion of huge reserves of carbon as our society has developed,” Craig Donlon, a European Space Agency project scientist, said before the first Sentinel-6 launch in 2020.
“We see evidence of this dramatic change in many different measurements … but they all point the same direction: the Earth is warming. And the greatest indicator of this Earth system imbalance is sea level rise.”
The Sentinel-6 satellites are the result of a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
St. Germain said NASA’s share of the cost for both Sentinel-6 satellites came to about $500 million. The Europeans contributed a similar amount.
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday he has decided to nominate Jared Isaacman to serve as his NASA administrator, months after withdrawing the tech billionaire’s nomination because of concerns about his political leanings.Trump announced in late May that he had decided to withdraw Isaacman after a “thorough review” of his “prior associations.” Weeks after the withdrawal, Trump went further in expressing his concerns about Isaacman’s Republican credentials.At the time, Trump acknowledged that he thought Isaacman “was very good,” but had become “surprised to learn” that Isaacman was a “ blue blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before.”Isaacman had the endorsement of Trump’s former DOGE adviser and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. The president and Musk had a very public falling out earlier this year but are now on better terms.Last week, Trump told reporters he and Musk have spoken “on and off” since sitting together at conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s funeral last month in Arizona and that their relationship is “good.”Trump made no mention of his previous decision to nominate and then withdraw Isaacman in his Tuesday evening announcement of the re-nomination on his Truth Social platform. And the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s decision to reverse course.“This evening, I am pleased to nominate Jared Isaacman, an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot, and astronaut, as Administrator of NASA,” Trump posted. “Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era.”Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been serving as interim NASA administrator. The president on Tuesday praised Duffy for doing an “incredible job.”Isaacman, CEO and founder of credit card-processing company Shift4, has been a close collaborator with Musk ever since buying his first chartered flight with SpaceX.He also bought a series of spaceflights from SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk. SpaceX has extensive contracts with NASA.The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved Isaacman’s nomination in late April and a vote by the full Senate had been expected when Trump announced he was yanking the nomination.In his own social media post Tuesday, Isaacman thanked Trump for the nomination and the “space-loving community.” He made no mention of the earlier turmoil.
WASHINGTON —
President Donald Trump announced Tuesday he has decided to nominate Jared Isaacman to serve as his NASA administrator, months after withdrawing the tech billionaire’s nomination because of concerns about his political leanings.
Trump announced in late May that he had decided to withdraw Isaacman after a “thorough review” of his “prior associations.” Weeks after the withdrawal, Trump went further in expressing his concerns about Isaacman’s Republican credentials.
At the time, Trump acknowledged that he thought Isaacman “was very good,” but had become “surprised to learn” that Isaacman was a “ blue blooded Democrat, who had never contributed to a Republican before.”
Isaacman had the endorsement of Trump’s former DOGE adviser and tech entrepreneur Elon Musk. The president and Musk had a very public falling out earlier this year but are now on better terms.
Last week, Trump told reporters he and Musk have spoken “on and off” since sitting together at conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s funeral last month in Arizona and that their relationship is “good.”
Trump made no mention of his previous decision to nominate and then withdraw Isaacman in his Tuesday evening announcement of the re-nomination on his Truth Social platform. And the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s decision to reverse course.
“This evening, I am pleased to nominate Jared Isaacman, an accomplished business leader, philanthropist, pilot, and astronaut, as Administrator of NASA,” Trump posted. “Jared’s passion for Space, astronaut experience, and dedication to pushing the boundaries of exploration, unlocking the mysteries of the universe, and advancing the new Space economy, make him ideally suited to lead NASA into a bold new Era.”
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has been serving as interim NASA administrator. The president on Tuesday praised Duffy for doing an “incredible job.”
Isaacman, CEO and founder of credit card-processing company Shift4, has been a close collaborator with Musk ever since buying his first chartered flight with SpaceX.
He also bought a series of spaceflights from SpaceX and conducted the first private spacewalk. SpaceX has extensive contracts with NASA.
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee approved Isaacman’s nomination in late April and a vote by the full Senate had been expected when Trump announced he was yanking the nomination.
In his own social media post Tuesday, Isaacman thanked Trump for the nomination and the “space-loving community.” He made no mention of the earlier turmoil.
Elon Musk claimed on October 31 that SpaceX will be sending data centers into space. He responded to a post on X from journalist Eric Berger about the viability of the concept.
“Simply scaling up Starlink V3 satellites, which have high speed laser links would work,” he wrote on X. “SpaceX will be doing this.”
As AI tools proliferate, so does demand for quick outputs. But it takes significant energy for AI models to function at the speed and quality that we want it to—both AI training and inference rely on data centers. The data centers that host the GPUs powering these functions are expanding, and with it the amount of electricity needed to operate and cool them.
The environmental impact of new technology is increasingly an issue. So why not just move those data centers to space?
An Inc.com Featured Presentation
Musk says that SpaceX’s satellites could incorporate the computing power for data centers. The company’s Starlink satellites currently provide global broadband internet service, orbiting at 550 km from Earth. They’re closer than other satellites, meaning latency is much lower at around 25 milliseconds compared to over 600 ms.
The company’s upcoming V3 satellites are designed to provide gigabit-class internet speeds and could reportedly weigh up to 4,409 pounds. Musk says they could be made even larger to host the data centers.
Still, they need Starship, SpaceX’s enormous rocket, for launch. Starship has had an explosion-filled history but recently had a good launch (its eleventh) in October.
StartupStarcloud is also on a mission to send data centers into space. The Redmond, Washington-based company is about to launch its Starcloud-1 satellite, carrying NVIDIA’s H100 GPU. It’s expected to offer 100 times more powerful GPU computing than any other space-based operation.
The company hopes it’s a step toward its goal of building five-gigawatt orbital data centers around 2.5 miles wide.
“The only environmental cost is the launch,” said Philip Johnston, Starcloud CEO. “After that, we could save 10 times the carbon emissions compared with running data centers on Earth.”
SpaceX will reportedly receive a $2 billion contract to develop satellites for the US government, according to the . The WSJ‘s report detailed that SpaceX will be tasked with developing up to 600 satellites that can track missiles and aircraft and will be used for President Trump’s proposed “Golden Dome” project.
in May, the president introduced a project to build an anti-missile defense system that would intercept missile attacks before reaching their target. The Golden Dome is reminiscent of Israel’s system, but the Pentagon has yet to reveal concrete details about the project. Considering the scale of the project, it’s worth noting that SpaceX’s reported $2 billion contract could be one of many associated with the Golden Dome. According to the report, companies like Anduril Industries and Palantir Technologies could also be involved with the development, which the Trump administration wants to complete before the end of his presidential term.
Beyond the Golden Dome, the WSJ reported that the Pentagon is planning to use SpaceX’s extensive satellite network for other purposes, including military communications and vehicle tracking. While the numbers are constantly fluctuating, SpaceX currently has more than 8,000 satellites for its Starlink service.
Duffy also cites “maybe others” getting involved. This refers to a third option. In recent weeks, officials from traditional space companies have been telling Duffy and the chief of staff at the Department of Transportation, Pete Meachum, that they can build an Apollo Lunar Module–like lander within 30 months. Amit Kshatriya, NASA’s associate administrator, favors this government-led approach, sources said.
On Monday, in a statement to Ars, a Lockheed Martin official confirmed that the company was ready if NASA called upon them.
“Throughout this year, Lockheed Martin has been performing significant technical and programmatic analysis for human lunar landers that would provide options to NASA for a safe solution to return humans to the moon as quickly as possible,” said Bob Behnken, vice president of exploration and technology strategy at Lockheed Martin Space. “We have been working with a cross-industry team of companies, and together we are looking forward to addressing Secretary Duffy’s request to meet our country’s lunar objectives.”
NASA would not easily be able to rip up its existing human lander system contracts with SpaceX and Blue Origin, as, especially with the former, much of the funding has already been awarded for milestone payments. Rather, Duffy would likely have to find new funding from Congress. And it would not be cheap. This NASA analysis from 2017 estimates that a cost-plus, sole-source lunar lander would cost $20 billion to $30 billion, or nearly 10 times what NASA awarded to SpaceX in 2021.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk, responding to Duffy’s comments, seemed to relish the challenge posed by industry competitors.
“SpaceX is moving like lightning compared to the rest of the space industry,” Musk said on the social media site he owns, X. “Moreover, Starship will end up doing the whole moon mission. Mark my words.”
The Timing
Duffy’s remarks on television on Monday morning, although significant for the broader space community, also seemed intended for an audience of one—President Trump.
The president appointed Duffy, already leading the Department of Transportation, to lead NASA on an interim basis in July. This came six weeks after the president, for political reasons, rescinded his nomination of billionaire and private astronaut Jared Isaacman to lead the space agency.
Why NASA may rethink its moon race plans after SpaceX delays – CBS News
Watch CBS News
NASA said it may consider new proposals from other top space companies to get America back to the moon amid rising concerns that Elon Musk’s SpaceX is behind schedule. Mark Strassmann has details.
This past Monday, October 13, Starship Version 2 launched for the last time, ending its nearly two-year run on a high note. The megarocket’s 11th suborbital test flight marked the final launch of this iteration of Starship, making way for an upgraded version that’s larger and equipped with more efficient Raptor engines.
Starship’s Version 3 is set to debut in 2026, marking the beginning of SpaceX’s orbital tests of its launch vehicle. This version of Starship will carry payloads to orbit and fly missions to the Moon and Mars. The upgraded vehicle will be about 5 feet taller (1.5 meters), capable of carrying more propellant, and equipped with new docking adapters for in-orbit fuel transfer.
Starships are meant to fly
Starship’s latest flight was another big success. SpaceX carried out several in-flight demonstrations to prepare for the launch of the rocket’s upgraded version. The second-generation prototype flew on a suborbital trajectory, similar to its previous missions, and deployed eight Starlink simulators.
Starship’s last two flights were successful, but they followed a string of mission failures that plagued the rocket’s first three launches of the year. Although Version 2 ended on a high, it did have a rather turbulent run. Nonetheless, the company is now turning its attention toward the upgraded version of its rocket.
“Focus now turns to the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy, with multiple vehicles currently in active build and preparing for tests,” SpaceX wrote in a statement. “This next iteration will be used for the first Starship orbital flights, operational payload missions, propellant transfer, and more as we iterate to a fully and rapidly reusable vehicle with service to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”
The next-generation upgrade to the current prototype features a larger vehicle that’s capable of carrying more propellant. The rocket will also use a more powerful and efficient version of its engines, the third-generation Raptor engines.
“We’re also getting energy storage upgrades, tons of avionics changes—a lot of things that will enable longer-duration missions,” SpaceX spokesperson Dan Huot said during Starship’s 11th test flight webcast.
In order to prepare the rocket for missions beyond low Earth orbit, the company also needs to equip Starship with a ship-to-ship propellant transfer system to refuel the vehicle in space.
“One notable thing you’ll start seeing on the outside are these new docking adapters, which we’ll use when we bring two Starships together for propellant transfer,” Huot said. “That’s a core capability of Starship that we’re going to demonstrate next year.”
As with any new vehicle prototype, there will be a learning curve with the next-generation Starship. During an interview in September, SpaceX’s founder Elon Musk revealed that “pretty much everything changes on the rocket with version 3.” The upgraded Starship “might have some initial teething pains because it’s such a radical redesign,” he added.
Considering the rocket’s new developments, it may take a while for Starship Version 3 to perfect those orbital flights. Musk had previously stated that he would like to send an uncrewed Starship to Mars during an upcoming launch window next year, but it’s not clear whether the rocket will be ready to travel to a new world by then.
SpaceX may be violating international telecommunication standards by allowing its Starshield satellites to transmit to Earth on frequencies it’s not supposed to use, NPR reports. Starshield is a classified version of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network offered on contract to government agencies “to support national security efforts,” according to the company’s website.
The report is based on findings from amateur satellite tracker Scott Tilley, who observed what appeared to be Starshield satellites broadcasting on frequencies normally dedicated to “uplink” transmissions from the Earth to satellites in orbit. Using the frequencies that way violates standards set by the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations agency dedicated to coordinating the use of radio spectrum across the world.
Standards around which frequencies are used for uplink and downlink broadcasts to satellites were created to avoid interference, among other technical issues. “Nearby satellites could receive radio-frequency interference and could perhaps not respond properly to commands — or ignore commands — from Earth,” Tilley told NPR. It’s not clear yet whether SpaceX ignoring these rules is causing any issues with satellite communication, but should problems arise, there’s now a possible cause.
SpaceX’s first major Starshield project was a $70 million contract with US Space Force in 2023. More recently in 2024, there were reports that SpaceX’s Starshield division had been tasked with building out a network of spy satellites to gather imagery of Earth for the Department of Defense’s National Reconnaissance Office.
SpaceX’s latest test flight of its Starship rocket was a success Monday evening, paving the way for the aerospace company to debut an even more powerful version. It marked an optimistic ending to a test campaign of Starship version two that was initially marked by failures.
On the back of Monday evening’s successful launch—the eleventh for Starship overall and final for version two—SpaceX is poised to begin testing Starship V3 later this year or early next.
“Starship’s eleventh flight test reached every objective, providing valuable data as we prepare the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy,” SpaceX detailed in a post on social media platform X.
The Starship lifted off from Starbase, the SpaceX company town incorporated in Texas earlier this year, on Monday evening around 7:23 p.m. ET. The Super Heavy rocket successfully splashed down off the coast of Texas, using 12 of 13 engines (one did not ignite). After liftoff, Starship achieved its desired velocity and trajectory and deployed eight satellites meant to represent real Starlink satellites. After the satellite test, Starship relit an engine in flight, which CNN noted was meant to test how the spacecraft may in the future maneuver itself back to land after a mission. It then re-entered the Earth’s atmosphere, enabling data gathering on its heat shield, and splashed down in the Indian Ocean.
An Inc.com Featured Presentation
SpaceX disclosed in a statement that it has multiple vehicles of the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy in active build. Whereas the Super Heavy is the first stage rocket booster, the Starship is the second stage booster and spacecraft in one. Those future vehicles will be used to test Starship in orbital flights, for “operational payload missions,” and more.
The Starship and Super Heavy rocket are designed to be fully reusable and capable of returning to their launch site and relaunching without refurbishment. The system is meant to carry payloads of up to 150 metric tons, or 250 metric tons if not being reused. SpaceX also states on its website that it aims for the Starship to carry up to 100 people on “long-duration, interplanetary flights” as well as to deliver satellites and help develop a moon base. This language hints at SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s grander ambitions for the Starship and its Heavy Rocket to ferry passengers to Mars.
But this past year in testing has been a fraught one for Starship. This year alone, four vehicles exploded—three during flight tests and one on the ground. That said, Musk and the team at SpaceX are already looking ahead to Starship version three, which CNN reported is expected to test later this year or early next.
In the closing moments of Monday’s flight, Starship flexed its flaps to perform a “dynamic banking maneuver” over the Indian Ocean, then flipped upright and fired its engines to slow for splashdown, simulating maneuvers the rocket will execute on future missions returning to the launch site. That will be one of the chief goals for the next phase of Starship’s test campaign beginning next year.
Patience for V3
It will likely be at least a few months before SpaceX is ready to launch the next Starship flight. Technicians at Starbase are assembling the next Super Heavy booster and the first Starship V3 vehicle. Once integrated, the booster and ship are expected to undergo cryogenic testing and static-fire testing before SpaceX moves forward with launch.
“Focus now turns to the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy, with multiple vehicles currently in active build and preparing for tests,” SpaceX wrote on its website. “This next iteration will be used for the first Starship orbital flights, operational payload missions, propellant transfer, and more as we iterate to a fully and rapidly reusable vehicle with service to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”
Starship V3 will have larger propellant tanks to increase the rocket’s lifting capacity, upgraded Raptor 3 engines, and an improved payload compartment to support launches of real Starlink satellites. SpaceX will also use this version of the rocket for orbital refueling experiments, a long-awaited milestone for the Starship program now planned for sometime next year. Orbital refueling is a crucial enabler for future Starship flights beyond low Earth orbit and is necessary for SpaceX to fulfill Musk’s ambition to send ships to Mars, the founder’s long-held goal for the company.
It’s also required for Starship flights to the moon. NASA has signed contracts with SpaceX worth more than $4 billion to develop a human-rated derivative of Starship to land astronauts on the moon as part of the agency’s Artemis program. The orbital refueling demonstration is a key milestone on the NASA lunar lander contract. Getting this done as soon as possible is vitally important to NASA, which is seeing its Artemis moon-landing schedule slip, in part due to Starship delays.
SpaceX’s second-generation Starship vehicle has just made a graceful exit. The company achieved every major objective it set for the super-heavy lift vehicle’s 11th flight test, the second-gen Starship’s final flight, which launched from Starbase in Texas on October 13. It followed another successful test in August, which saw Starship deploy its payload for the first time ever. Before those two most recent flights, SpaceX suffered a series of failures: Starship exploded during its ascent stage in the company’s seventh and eighth tests, and it failed to deploy its payload during its ninth test. Another Starship vehicle blew up on the ground during a routine test while SpaceX was preparing for its 10th flight.
All of the vehicle’s 33 Raptor engines ignited upon launch, and the stage separation and first-stage ascent went smoothly. The Super Heavy booster splashed down into the ocean as planned, while Starship was able to deploy all its Starlink simulators before re-entering the atmosphere. During its reentry burn, SpaceX intentionally stressed the vehicle to determine the capabilities of its heatshield. And with just a few minutes left to the flight, the vehicle executed a banking maneuver to “mimic the trajectory that future missions returning to Starbase will fly.”
The company says it will now focus on developing the next generation of Starship and Super Heavy. It has multiple versions of the vehicle and the booster being prepared for tests at the moment, and it expects them to be used for the first Starship orbital flights and operational payload missions.
SpaceX launched its Super Heavy-Starship rocket on Monday for the 11th time, marking another successful test flight that built upon previous launches.
Elon Musk, SpaceX founder and CEO, briefly made an appearance on the company’s livestream ahead of the launch, saying it was the first time that he was going to be outside to watch the rocket.
“Normally I’m in mission control and stuff,” Musk told the livestream hosts. “It’s really going to be much more visceral.”
Shortly after, Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — thundered into the evening sky from the southern tip of Texas. The booster peeled away and made a controlled entry into the Gulf as planned, with the spacecraft skimming space before descending into the Indian Ocean. Nothing was being recovered.
SpaceX’s mega rocket Starship makes a test flight from Starbase, Texas, on Monday, Oct. 13, 2025.
Eric Gay / AP
It was the 11th test flight for a full-scale Starship, which Musk intends to use to send people to Mars. NASA’s need is more immediate. The space agency cannot land astronauts on the moon by decade’s end without the 403-foot Starship, the reusable vehicle meant to get them from lunar orbit down to the surface and back up.
SpaceX’s mega rocket booster returns to the Gulf during a test flight from Starbase, Texas, on Monday, Oct. 13, 2025.
Eric Gay / AP
The previous test flight in August — a success after a string of explosive failures — followed a similar path with similar goals. More maneuvering was built in this time, especially for the spacecraft. SpaceX planned a series of tests during the spacecraft’s entry over the Indian Ocean as practice for future landings back at the launch site.
Like before, Starship carried up eight mock satellites mimicking SpaceX’s Starlinks. The entire flight was meant to last just over an hour, originating from Starbase near the Mexican border.
SpaceX is modifying its Cape Canaveral launch sites to accommodate Starships, in addition to the much smaller Falcon rockets used to transport astronauts and supplies to the International Space Station for NASA.
SpaceX launches Starship megarocket’s 11th test flight – CBS News
Watch CBS News
SpaceX on Monday launched its 11th test flight of the Starship megarocket, moving the company one step closer to its goal of bringing humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars. CBS News space contributor Christian Davenport has more.
Did you find this article by typing in the name of a website associated with Elon Musk? Did it sound like you could invest in SpaceX, Neuralink, or one of Musk’s AI ventures like Grok and xAI? It’s fake. It’s 100%, without a doubt, completely fake.
I know you may not believe it, but please read on. Because this article could save you from losing a lot of money. Elon Musk is a very wealthy man. He’s worth $500 billion, according to Forbes, making him the wealthiest person on the planet. But Musk does not have a website dedicated to making other people rich.
You may have seen an ad on Facebook or maybe a video on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube. It may have even looked like Elon Musk was talking about some amazing investment opportunity. Maybe it looked like Elon was raising money for a sick child. You may have even been asked to send money through gift cards or a bitcoin ATM. But it was fake. You need to believe us. Because it’s true.
Musk does not have a website selling cryptocurrencies. He doesn’t have a website for trading stocks. He doesn’t have a public website selling shares of his private companies like SpaceX, Neuralink, xAI, and X. The promotional video you saw is fake and probably used artificial intelligence tools to make it look like Elon Musk was saying something he never said.
People are losing millions
Did someone reach out to you on a social media site like Facebook or Instagram claiming to be Elon? Did they tell you to talk with them over Signal or Telegram or WhatsApp? That person is a scammer. Elon Musk does not reach out to people on websites and ask them for money. And if they haven’t already asked you to send money, that part is coming.
Again, you might be skeptical. A lot of people want to believe that Elon Musk is offering ways for the average person to become rich. But he’s not. Among other reasons, he doesn’t have time.
Here at Gizmodo, we’ve written about scammers impersonating Elon Musk for years.
There was the woman in Washington who lost $63,000 because she thought she was talking to Elon.
There was the person who lost over $18,000 watching a video livestream they thought was for Tesla.
There was also the Florida principal who sent an Elon Musk scammer a check for $100,000.
People have literally been losing millions of dollars to scammers over the years because they thought they were investing in something approved by Elon Musk. But it was all fake.
Scam AI Videos
It’s incredible what can be accomplished with AI these days. You can make people appear to say things they never said. For example, here’s an ad we spotted below. Elon never said any of that.
Fake Elon Websites
All of the websites below are scams. And while Gizmodo is often reluctant to advertise the web domains of scammers, because it risks inadvertently driving more people to scammy websites, using the names of the scams is the only way to help get the word out that these specific websites will steal your money.
And this list only scratches the surface. These are some of the domains that have been reported to the FTC, but there are so many more out there.
ceomusk.org [SCAM]
elonbitcoin.fun [SCAM]
elonchristmas.com [SCAM]
fastmars.net [SCAM]
investmuskspace.icu [SCAM]
marshome.us [SCAM]
marsway.net [SCAM]
marsyox.com [SCAM]
marsvalue.net [SCAM]
myteslatoken.com [SCAM]
official2xMusk.com [SCAM]
shippingteslamail.com [SCAM]
tesla-clubs.com [SCAM]
tesla-prize-x.com [SCAM]
teslaminingprogram.com [SCAM]
teslaminingplatform.aphatrad.com [SCAM]
teslaoption.com [SCAM]
teslapresale.net [SCAM]
tesla.token-presale.org [SCAM]
teslatoken-presale.online [SCAM]
telsaxmarketing.com [SCAM]
tsla-marketspro.com [SCAM]
teslgets.com [SCAM]
tsl-xspace.pw [SCAM]
x-coin-platform.io [SCAM]
Scam Names
There are also scams that you may know by various names that aren’t dedicated websites, but are being spread through social media platforms. Some of the common ones we’ve seen are below.
Elon Musk Fan Page Membership Card
Elon Musk x Donald Trump Crypto Giveaway
Space Stock Mining
Tesla Bitcoin
Tesla Token
Tesla Mining
Neuralink Crypto Token
SpaceX Token
Please believe us. It’s not real.
Maybe someone sent you this article. Maybe you found it through Google. Please know that visiting these websites and “investing” in them will only lead you to heartache and pain.
The people who’ve been scammed at these sites often feel foolish afterward. And we don’t want you to feel foolish. We want you to avoid just handing your money away for nothing.
If you’re interested in investing, there are plenty of reputable places to do that. You can even invest in Musk’s company, Tesla, if you want to buy stock in that company through a reputable stockbroker. All investing involves risks, but the websites we’ve featured here aren’t just risks where you might make some money or you might lose some money.
If you give any of these websites your money, you will only lose. We promise you.
Have you been scammed and want to tell your story? You can email the author of this article at [email protected].
SpaceX’s Starship megarocket is back on the launch pad at Boca Chica, prepared and ready for its final flight test of the year. Flight 11, scheduled to lift off on Monday evening at the earliest, will also be the final test flight for this iteration of Starship, Version 2—if everything goes to plan.
The launch window will open at 7:15 p.m. Eastern on Monday, October 13, according to SpaceX. A livestream of the event will begin approximately 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch at SpaceX.com or the company’s account on X. You can also tune in through any of the third-party webcasts below.
A transitional moment for SpaceX
Last week, SpaceX shared photos of Starship’s Super Heavy booster set up on its pad at Starbase, the company’s launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. The rocket’s upper stage, called Starship or “Ship” for short, is stacked on top of the booster ahead of its flight.
Starship is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. Altogether, it stands about 400 feet (122 meters) tall. But SpaceX is going bigger: The next iteration of Starship—Version 3—will be even larger and capable of carrying 100 tons (363 metric tons) to orbit, according to CEO Elon Musk. Its first launch is expected sometime in early 2026.
But before SpaceX can roll out Version 3, the company needs this last test of Version 2 to go smoothly. It’s last test, Flight 10, which lifted off from Starbase in August, went off without a hitch. But that launch followed a string of explosive failures that had put Starship off-track.
For this test, Starship will follow a very similar flight plan to its last launch, just with a few tweaks to further stress-test the rocket’s heat shield and demonstrate maneuvers that are designed to mimic how its upper stages will behave when it is returning to its launch site—Starhsip, after all, is meant to be fully reusable.
A similar but different flight plan
In the eleventh test flight, Starship’s Super Heavy Booster is supposed to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico while, its upper stage progresses along a suborbital arc, then reenters the atmosphere for a water landing in the Indian Ocean, according to SpaceX.
The test will attempt several in-space objectives, including a deployment of eight dummy Starlink satellites and a relight of one of its Raptor engines. SpaceX has again removed several ceramic tiles from the heat shield to stress-test the rocket’s thermal protection system.
Unlike flight 10, however, this time the spacecraft will perform a “dynamic banking maneuver” during the final phase of the rocket’s reentry, designed to mimic the path it will take on future flights returning to Starbase.
The booster will also demonstrate a “unique landing burn engine configuration planned to be used on the next generation of Super Heavy,” according to SpaceX. The booster will ignite 13 of its 33 engines to start the burn, transition to five engines to fine-tune its trajectory, then downshift to three center engines for the final stage of the burn.
The booster selected for this launch is flight-proven, having already flown on flight 8 in March. Twenty-four of the booster’s Raptor engines are also flight-proven. This will be the second reuse of a Super Heavy booster, a critical test of SpaceX’s rapid reusability strategy.
It’s been a turbulent year for the Starship program. After a very shaky start to the rocket’s 2025 launch schedule, SpaceX is now under pressure to reach critical development milestones ahead of its next iteration. Monday’s launch is one you won’t want to miss.
