Stories by Sarah Lee-Jones

The Federal Communications Commission voted Wednesday to open 1,050 megahertz of spectrum in the 12.7 GHz and 42 GHz bands for satellite broadband, creating a major new pool of airwaves that operators including SpaceX's Starlink could seek to use for faster, more reliable service. Spectrum is the invisible highway that carries every wireless signal. Starlink's...

Grok is now the AI engine behind America.gov, the White House's new federal portal unveiled September 29 by Chief Design Officer Joe Gebbia, giving Americans a conversational way to find official answers drawn from 29,000 government websites. The White House said Tuesday that America.gov is the new online home for the United States of America,...

Tesla is rolling out software version 2026.38 to legacy Model 3 and Model Y vehicles with AMD chips, bringing the company's updated driving visualizations to older cars that had remained on the previous look. Release notes tracked by Tessie show the update adds a "Visual Updates" feature with higher quality images of the car on...

The SEC cleared Tesla's retail auto-vote program on Tuesday, letting individual investors opt in once and have their shares voted with the board's recommendations at every shareholder meeting. Retail holders enroll once at no cost and set a standing instruction to follow the board. They can apply it to all matters put to a vote,...

SpaceX rolled its Falcon Heavy rocket out to Launch Complex 39A on Tuesday, September 29, clearing one of the last major hurdles before the classified NROL-97 mission lifts off from Florida on October 1. The 16-second video accompanying the announcement shows the triple-core heavy-lifter leaving its hangar and riding toward the pad. SpaceX shared the...

Tesla's investor relations page posted its company-compiled consensus for the third quarter on Tuesday, September 29, with 24 sell-side analysts expecting 461,974 vehicle deliveries, a number that would be down 7.1% from a year ago and sets the bar Tesla needs to clear when it reports on Friday. This is the fourth consensus release since...

The European Transport Safety Council urged EU member states on Tuesday to reject Tesla's Full Self-Driving system over a speed offset feature that can let the car travel above the detected speed limit, but the ETSC is an advocacy group, not a regulator, and its non-binding recommendation runs against what the actual regulators keep deciding....

Elon Musk says Delta Air Lines “will lose a lot of customers” in a reply to a post noting the airline has no Starlink-equipped planes or plans for them, as United Airlines passed 600 aircraft with Starlink. Delta has separately committed to Amazon's Leo satellite service for in-flight WiFi, with rollout not starting until 2028....

Tesla opened its 3,000th Supercharger in Canada on Monday, a 24-stall station on Montée Ryan in Mont-Tremblant, Quebec, just in time for the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend on October 12. Tesla Charging announced the milestone Monday and shared photos of the new site, which features red pylons with maple-leaf branding. Mont-Tremblant is a popular resort...

SpaceXAI has launched Team Bots, a new Grok feature that gives companies shared AI teammates able to work from common files, apps and instructions while building useful knowledge over time. Announced Monday, Team Bots are designed around specific roles or workflows rather than individual conversations. Companies can give a bot access to internal documents, instructions,...

Tesla has pushed its upcoming Roadster event from October 1 to October 15, saying Monday that severe weather in the forecast forced the delay because the event can only be held outdoors. The company explained the change in a short update titled "Roadster event update." "We've been tracking the weather closely with local meteorologists, but...

SpaceX completed Starship’s first orbital mission on Flight 14, reaching Earth orbit for the first time while deploying 26 Starlink V3 satellites that could expand the spacecraft’s role in future high-capacity missions. Starship lifted off from Starbase, Texas on September 28 at 7:48 a.m. CT for its 14th flight and first attempt to reach orbit. […]

Starlink beamed live video from SpaceX's Starship back to Earth on Monday as the ship orbited the planet for the first time in program history during Flight 14, which lifted off from Starbase, Texas carrying 26 Starlink V3 satellites. Flight 14 marked the first Starship mission planned to reach orbit, and SpaceX said Monday the...

Tesla's Robotaxi will now make sure you don't leave your bags behind. A new feature spotted Sunday automatically reopens the trunk at the end of a ride if the rider opened it before the trip began. X user Aryan Butala shared the find September 27 with a 23-second demo video. The car pops the trunk...

A 50-foot bronze statue of Prometheus is going up just outside Starbase. The statue is being assembled on private land near the entrance to the SpaceX launch site, according to drone operator Joe Tegtmeyer, who documented the work on Sunday. Tegtmeyer said it is not a SpaceX commission, and Elon Musk is not paying for...