Latest / Elon Musk Podcast / Elon Musk Weekly News Update: Starship Flight 6 & FSD 13.5 (Jan 17, 2026)

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Elon Musk Weekly News Update: Starship Flight 6 & FSD 13.5 (Jan 17, 2026) · Elon Musk Podcast

0:01
Ford's F-150 Lightning outsold the Tesla Cyber truck in 2025,
0:05
and Ford still killed the program because it wasn't
0:08
selling enough. The Tesla stainless steel truck
0:11
moved roughly 21,500 units globally last year, while the
0:15
Lightning, a truck Ford publicly retired in December, delivered
0:20
approximately 27,300 units in the US alone.
0:23
Now you have a discounted vehicle outpacing an actively
0:26
marketed 1. And that raises a question most
0:29
Tesla bulls don't want to answer.
0:32
If Ford abandoned its EV truck at 27,000 units, what does that
0:38
mean for a cyber truck stuck at 21,500?
0:41
Now we're going to break down the actual sales numbers Tesla
0:44
doesn't want you to see. Explain why SpaceX buying over
0:47
1000 cyber trucks still couldn't stop the bleeding, and look at
0:50
what options Elon Musk has left. The data here paints a picture
0:55
of a vehicle program running at roughly 10% of its intended
0:59
production capacity, and we'll get right into that after this
1:03
very short break. Now, the cyber truck is now
1:06
producing at a fraction of what Tesla planned, and the company
1:10
is doing everything it can to hide the numbers Tesla bundles.
1:13
It sails into two broad categories, Model 3 and Y, and
1:17
other models. The second bucket includes the
1:19
Model S, Model X, Cybertruck, and Tesla Semi, which makes
1:23
isolating Cybertruck performance an exercise in reverse
1:26
engineering. Model S and Model X have held
1:29
relatively stable at low volume, hovering around 5000 to 6000
1:34
units combined per quarter globally.
1:37
And if we allocate A generous 6000 units for S&X in quarter
1:41
4/20/25, that leaves roughly 5600 units for the Cybertruck
1:46
and Semi combined. The semi remains in pilot
1:49
production with negligible volume.
1:51
So we're looking at about 5500 Cyber trucks for the entire
1:55
quarter. Now that number should alarm
1:57
anyone who followed Musk's original production promises for
2:01
the vehicle. In test the confirm in July
2:03
2025, the Cyber Truck sales had dropped to around 5000 units in
2:09
quarter 2 and the recovery never materialized.
2:12
The company cut prices, introduced a cheaper trim and
2:15
sales still cratered nearly 50% year over years.
2:19
And for context, the original Cyber Truck reveal in 2019
2:22
promised 250,000 units per year at full production.
2:27
The current run rate suggests annual output closer to a measly
2:33
22,000 units. That's roughly 10%, less than
2:37
10% of stated capacity figure that would trigger program
2:41
cancellation at any other automaker.
2:44
Now, Ford provides a useful comparison point here.
2:47
The F-150 Lightning launched A genuine enthusiasm and solid
2:51
early sales, but Ford faced its own production challenges,
2:55
battery cost overruns, and shifting consumer demand.
2:58
By late 2025, Ford announced it was ending Lightning production
3:02
to pivot toward extended range EVs.
3:06
The Lightning delivered about 27,300 units in the US for 2025,
3:11
down 18% year over year as the company wound down the program
3:15
and Ford looked at those numbers and decided the truck wasn't
3:18
viable long term. Tesla is looking at worst
3:21
numbers. I'm calling it a success now.
3:24
I've been digging through the analytics of the show and
3:27
noticed that 37% of you are following the channel for you.
3:32
I'm forever grateful and you are part of our success here at the
3:36
show. The other 63% of you haven't hit
3:38
the follower subscribe button. There's a few reasons for that.
3:41
You may have listened to a few episodes and just forgot to hit
3:43
the button. And that's cool.
3:45
I do that all the time. So please, if you can hit the
3:48
follower or like button. And I've been an independent
3:51
journalist covering SpaceX, Elon Musk, Space Flight and tech for
3:55
the six years. And I spent a year at Starbase
4:00
Texas, on the ground at SpaceX, and I'm going to continue for
4:05
the next 10 years. All I ask from you is one second
4:08
of your time to hit the follow or subscribe button on whatever
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platform you're watching on right now.
4:14
I'm extremely grateful and blessed to have you in this
4:17
community. You're part of this now.
4:18
So thank you so much for joining us.
4:22
Now let's get back into this Tesla stuff.
4:25
It's crazy. Tesla released a cheaper
4:28
stripped down cyber truck variant to boost sales.
4:31
The company cancelled it months later because it wasn't selling.
4:35
Musk then had SpaceX purchase over 1000 cyber trucks in
4:39
quarter 4 of 2025. Now that single purchase
4:43
accounted for roughly 20% of Tesla's quarterly cyber truck
4:46
sales. His own company he bought?
4:49
He basically bought his own cyber trucks.
4:50
Even with his own company propping up the numbers, cyber
4:54
trucks sales still declined more than 50% year over year.
4:58
SpaceX cannot keep buying trucks to pad Tesla's quarterly
5:01
reports, and eventually the financial engineering runs out
5:06
of runway. Now the 4680 battery cells
5:09
deserve scrutiny here as well. Tesla built the cyber truck
5:12
around these proprietary cells, betting that in house battery
5:15
production would reduce costs and improve performance.
5:18
The opposite happened in 4680. Cells contributed to higher
5:23
vehicle prices than originally announced and delivered shorter
5:26
range than the 2019 revealed promise.
5:28
A cyber truck that was supposed to start at around 40,000 now
5:32
starts well above that in the range.
5:34
Figures fell short of early marketing, 50,060 thousand for
5:39
some of those. And those broken promises eroded
5:42
trust with people who would love to buy a Tesla truck.
5:48
They needed to convert those people and they just didn't do
5:50
it. The price was too high.
5:52
And also Elon Musk, his public persona is another viable factor
5:58
in this equation. Brand perception matters, and
6:01
when it comes to automotive consumers, Musk's political
6:05
activities over the past two years have alienated a
6:07
significant portion of potential buyers.
6:10
There's been surveys out there, and I'm not saying that the
6:12
perfect, but they consistently show that CEO behavior ranks
6:17
among the top reasons consumers avoid Tesla.
6:20
The company has no marketing department to counteract
6:23
negative press, no dealer network to smooth over concerns,
6:26
and no PR team to manage Elon Musk's controversies.
6:31
Every Musk tweet becomes the de facto voice of the company, no
6:34
matter what he says. It reflects on Tesla and all of
6:37
his other companies. And for a vehicle that already
6:40
struggled with polarizing design and it's hot, it's metal, and
6:44
it's sharp, adding a polarizing spokesperson, Elon Musk, created
6:50
compounding headwinds for the vehicle.
6:53
Now the path narrows with each quarter at Tesla.
6:57
Musk previously said Tesla would pivot to more traditional truck
7:01
design of the cyber truck failed.
7:03
But that pivot hasn't happened. There's no talk about it.
7:06
Acknowledging failure would require Musk to admit the design
7:09
was completely wrong. And it's management style
7:13
doesn't accommodate that kind of public reversal.
7:16
The Cyber Cab and other projects continue to absorb engineering
7:20
resources while the Cyber Truck line sits underutilized.
7:24
Most automakers would have written off this program by now,
7:27
absorb the loss and redirected capital toward viable products.
7:31
Tesla appeared committed to running out the clock.
7:33
Instead, Ford has officially killed the Lightning at 27,300
7:40
annual units. Tesla is celebrating the Cyber
7:43
Truck at 21,500 units. One company recognized when a
7:49
product wasn't working, it just killed it, moved on, pivoted.
7:52
The other company keeps buying its own inventory through the
7:55
shell game with SpaceX transactions from other
7:59
companies and they call it growth.
8:01
But that's not how it is. They needed to appease the
8:04
people that were buying the stock.
8:06
They needed those extra sales so it didn't look like it was a
8:09
horror show of only 4000 units sale sold in the last quarter.
8:14
So the cyber truck program now operates at about 10% or less.
8:18
Capacity prices remain higher than promised, range fell short
8:22
of announcements, and the cheaper variant got cancelled.
8:27
So unless something changes at Tesla, they may never do another
8:34
cyber truck again. Elon Musk says Tesla will stop
8:41
selling Full Self Driving as a one time purchase and move it to
8:45
a monthly subscription. Today we're going to unpack what
8:49
a subscription only FSD means for drivers, how it could change
8:53
Tesla's business model, and where this leaves anyone who
8:56
already paid for Full Self Driving before now.
9:00
The current numbers are the subscription for $99.00 per
9:05
month and the one time option is $8000, but the offer ends after
9:13
Valentine's Day. Now, does this shift finally
9:16
solve the long running frustration over FSD pricing
9:19
value? The tease is very simple from
9:24
Tesla. This pricing change lines up
9:26
with a subscription target embedded in Musk's pay plan.
9:29
We'll also talk about how a lower upfront cost could change
9:32
adoption, usage, and data collection for Tesla, and we'll
9:35
get right into that after this very short break.
9:40
Tesla is moving Full Self Driving to subscription only,
9:44
must share the change on X and set the cut off after February
9:48
14th, making the monthly plan the only way to get FSD going
9:52
forward. This choice eliminates the $8000
9:55
one time option that sits next to the $99 monthly subscription
9:59
on Tesla's website right now. Musk's post leaves little room
10:03
for doubt. He said Tesla will stop selling
10:05
FSD as an upfront purchase after the February 14th deadline, and
10:10
that FSD will be available only as a monthly subscription after
10:14
that point. The decision arrives after years
10:16
of price changes for the one time option, including a 2022
10:19
peak of $15,000. This sparked debate among owners
10:25
about value expectations and transfer rules.
10:28
The subscription price anchors the conversation at a lower
10:31
entry point and a familiar consumer model and the current
10:34
pricing gives us an easy way to frame this math.
10:37
At $99.00 per month, a driver would need more than 80 months
10:42
to catch today's $8000 one time cost.
10:45
That is about 6 years and nine months.
10:48
Many owners cycle cars sooner than that, and even for long
10:52
term owners, the flexibility to cancel during months when they
10:55
do not need FSD will appeal to budget minded households.
10:59
The new model invites more trial, more seasonal use and
11:02
less buyer's remorse tied to a big upfront bet.
11:06
And the change also lands at a strategic moment for Tesla's
11:09
software. The company has pitched FSD as
11:11
software that improves the data and iteration, and a broader
11:14
subscriber base can create more real world miles for training
11:18
and validation. And a lower paywall can expand
11:21
the pool of drivers who use FSD during Rd. trips, commutes, or
11:25
fleetwork, which can feed the software loop that Tesla depends
11:28
on for progressing forward now. This is a steady recurring
11:33
revenue stream that Wall Street understands, and it tightens the
11:37
link between product use and product improvement.
11:40
Now. FS DS price history offers
11:44
context for why subscription might be the cleanest way to
11:47
reset expectations for $15,000 in 2022 and eventually settled
11:54
though it. People were mad that they
11:55
couldn't move their FSD from vehicle to vehicle.
11:59
Owners who bought at the higher price expected long term value
12:03
that kept rising with each software advance.
12:05
But moving to a subscription standardizes the value
12:08
proposition or on monthly utility.
12:12
These aren't just future promises now, it's what you get
12:15
right now. Do you want it this month and is
12:17
it worth $99.00 for the routes you drive right now?
12:20
Will it make your life easier? Is that $99.00 per month going
12:24
to save you enough time to compensate you for that $99.00?
12:30
And Tesla's cut off timing is random.
12:33
It aligns though with Targets and Musk's 2025 CEO Performance
12:38
Award, which includes A requirement for 10 million
12:40
active FSD subscriptions over the next decade.
12:44
The award also attaches other stretch targets from cumulative
12:47
vehicle production to robotaxis and even a market cap goal.
12:51
In short, success in subscriptions is now one lever
12:55
in Musk's long term compensation, the linkage as a
12:59
clear incentive to streamline how FSD is sold, simplify the
13:02
funnel and push for a higher adoption.
13:05
And already, if you've paid for this FSD today, it'll sit
13:12
outside this change, at least in how the offer is currently
13:16
framed. The announcement speaks to
13:19
stopping new one time sales after February 14th, not clawing
13:24
back anyone's existing purchase. You still get it.
13:27
And for shoppers weighing new Tesla, the take away is direct.
13:30
The decision point on paying once versus paying monthly
13:34
expires after the holiday. Would you rather pay $8000
13:38
upfront or would you rather pay $99.00 a month?
13:43
To me, the benefit of having it as a $99 subscription is that
13:48
it's obtainable from somebody who doesn't have an extra,
13:53
basically $10,000 laying around for software that isn't
13:57
complete. Let me know in the comments of
14:00
your podcast platform what you think of this.
14:03
Do you think it's easier at $99.00 a month or do you think
14:06
8012 thousand $15,000 upfront for FSD, a not fully realized
14:12
piece of software, Do you think that's better?
14:15
And if you value perpetual access, the final window for
14:19
that purchase is short. If you were on the fence, the
14:23
subscription only feature favours trying FSD for a month
14:26
or two and deciding if you want to sit around with this FSD
14:31
rather than looking into just spending 10 grand on it.
14:36
Now Speaking of analytics, I've been digging through them for
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the show and I noticed that 37% of you are following this
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channel and for you I'm forever grateful.
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I love you, you're amazing and you help me do what I do.
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And the other 63% of you haven't hit the follower subscribe
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button. And I get it.
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Sometimes you watch a show or you listen to a show for a
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while, you just forget to hit the subscribe button.
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It actually really helps the channel so much if you hit the
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sub button. And if we get enough subscribers
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or followers on the show, we can do a lot more things.
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We can have guests on the show. We can upgrade the quality of
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the audio. I don't know if you've realized,
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but I've upgraded the quality of the audio at the beginning of
15:19
the year because I keep getting subscribers.
15:22
And it's because of you that I could continue doing this.
15:25
And I've been an independent journalist covering SpaceX, Elon
15:28
Musk, Space Flight and technology for the last six
15:32
years. And I'll continue for the next
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10 years. You have my promise and all I
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ask from you is one second of your time for the next 10 years
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of mine. You just have to hit the follow
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And if you want to go the extra distance, leave a five star
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news, all the stuff, right? So I'm extremely grateful for
16:01
you and I'm blessed to have you here in this community.
16:05
So thank you so much. Now people were saying they were
16:11
saving for the one time option and this may accelerate orders
16:17
before the cut off, right? So if somebody was saving $8000,
16:21
they were saving up for it. And like, you know what, I don't
16:23
want to pay a subscription and but I do want to save that $8000
16:27
and I want to, I just bought a new Model Y and I just want to
16:32
not even worry about FSD subscription.
16:34
I'm just going to put my $8000 in.
16:37
But others will accept the subscription as a trial and wait
16:40
for the next major software release to test again.
16:42
So maybe you get it for two or three months.
16:45
You drive around town, you take it on a road trip, see how it
16:48
works and the flexibility of turning FSD on for a road trip
16:52
then pausing it might be a good idea.
16:55
You spend $99.00 before your road trip, you turn on FSD, you
17:01
hit the road and everything's taken care of for you.
17:04
And that kind of usage pattern might bring in people who never
17:08
would have dropped several thousand, almost $10,000
17:11
upfront. There's no way a lot of people
17:14
have an extra $10,000. And Tesla's vehicle, I mean, the
17:19
price range for people is between 35,000 to 100 plus $1000
17:26
for a Tesla, right? And if you're at the low end of
17:29
that, you're like, OK, I got about $35,000, right?
17:33
I don't have an extra $10,000 for full self driving.
17:36
So maybe this $99.00 a month thing could really work out.
17:40
I have an extra $99.00 a month. I just don't have $10,000 extra.
17:45
Now there's also a second order effect in how Tesla markets
17:49
vehicles. Sales advisors can pitch a lower
17:52
total drive away price. So since the sticker does not
17:55
carry an extra $8000 add on for FSD, buyers can leave a lot with
18:01
standard autopilot and add FSD later when they want to, which
18:06
helps test the close deals without a long discussion of
18:09
lifetime failure. They can also sell you the plan
18:11
right there. You know you go to a Tesla
18:13
showroom and they can tell you how much things cost.
18:17
If you're going to spend $8000 upfront and this is before
18:20
Valentine's Day, February 14th, you only have about a month to
18:24
do this. Now the FSD becomes a post sale
18:29
upsell, the test that can pursue an e-mail in app prompts or free
18:35
trials tied to holidays and travel seasons.
18:37
So what if they say subscription is $99.00 a month?
18:41
Hey, Valentine's Day is coming up.
18:44
Pop it up in the app. Hey, you and your loved ones are
18:47
going on a road trip Valentine's Day.
18:50
Get FSD. It's going to make your trip so
18:52
much better. Now, streaming services do this
18:55
already. They pop up things all the time,
18:58
you know, like, hey, do you want to upgrade your service so you
19:00
can have more people on your plan?
19:01
Or do you spend $15 per month, 15 to $20.00 per month for a
19:06
streaming service that makes your life more fun?
19:10
But would you pay $99.00 for a vehicle that can drive you
19:13
wherever you want to go and leave your mind open to think
19:20
and to pursue other goals while that's happening?
19:23
You're basically in a taxi with FSD.
19:26
The business context ties back to how Tesla wants investors to
19:30
see the company. Hardware carries very tight
19:32
margins, and it swings with the economy.
19:36
Software subscriptions can smooth that revenue.
19:38
When people aren't buying vehicles, the vehicles that they
19:41
already have could be generating revenue for Tesla every month.
19:45
They could expand gross margins and demonstrate user engagement.
19:49
And if FSD adoption rises, Tesla can report subscription numbers
19:53
and growth rates every quarter, which gives the market a clean
19:57
handle on how software is building the future for Tesla.
20:02
And this is for the long term goals of course for Elon, but
20:05
also for Tesla too. They want to make extra money so
20:08
they can build extra cool things.
20:10
So this is a historic pain point for FSD, $15,000.
20:17
Back in the day, owners who sold or traded their cars face
20:20
questions about whether their value transferred.
20:23
And if they sell their Model S with $15,000 FSD, where does the
20:29
FSD go? Does it go with the vehicle or
20:31
does it get turned off? Like those are all the questions
20:34
that people asked. But if you have a subscription,
20:37
it removes that friction by making software access transient
20:40
by default. If you have a Model 3 and then
20:44
you sell that Model 3 and you buy a Model S, then that
20:48
subscription goes straight to the Model S and you don't have
20:51
to worry about it. Customer only decides whether to
20:54
pay for the next month, not whether to protect a sunk cost
20:57
across multiple vehicles. So if you had to Model 3, you
21:00
sold it Model S. You would have to spend another
21:03
$8000 to get FSD in the past, but not anymore.
21:07
And the shift helps future proof sales for Tesla as it iterates
21:12
hardware, chips and sensors over the next few years.
21:15
A driver can turn on FSD for a month of heavy highway trips,
21:20
cancel for a few months. If you're just going to run
21:23
around town or if you want to use it in town too, that's cool,
21:26
but then return when you're doing Rd. trips again.
21:31
People do that all the time with streaming, so I do that all the
21:34
time with streaming software. Let me know in the comments if
21:36
you do that too. Sometimes I'll just turn off
21:39
Paramount plus. I'm like, I don't have anything
21:41
to watch on that or Netflix, same thing or actually, you know
21:46
what Apple TV Plus, I always have something to watch.
21:49
I always watch foundation on that.
21:52
So if, and this is kind of like my background show, I just put
21:57
foundation on while I'm working. So I think people will do that
22:02
with this too. I think what they're going to be
22:04
doing is Rd. trips. Yes, turn on FSD, 99 bucks.
22:09
Let's pay it upfront. You know, we're going on a road
22:11
trip in March, maybe at the end of February, turn on FSD, get
22:16
used to it at the end of February, and then March rolls
22:19
around. You already have FSD for another
22:21
month, you're good. And if you want to track the
22:26
autonomy of Teslas, remember the capabilities today and the
22:31
supervision is required. The company continues to ship
22:34
updates that improve behaviour, add use cases and reduce
22:38
interventions, and owners still must remain attentive.
22:43
And also, all of this will feed data to Tesla for robotaxis and
22:51
that is their big bet. Subscriptions for FSD $99.00 a
22:56
month will directly feed that data to FSD in robotaxis.
23:04
And when they take over the robotaxi market, because Waymo
23:08
and them are going to be side by side, it's going to be Lyft and
23:10
Uber all over again. And when they have all this data
23:15
from all these people running FSD, it's going to be such a
23:21
huge, huge boost for Tesla over Waymo.
23:26
Quick recap here. Musk says Tesla will stop
23:29
selling FSD as a one time purchase after February 14th.
23:33
The only way to get it after that date is $99.00 per month
23:37
for subscription. The one time option is currently
23:40
$8000 which is down from 15 and the move is for the long term.
23:47
They need to get 10 million active FSD subscription in
23:52
Musk's compensation plan so this lowers the barrier to entry.
23:57
Sales are super easy now. You don't have to convince
24:00
somebody to spend $10,000 and Elon and Tesla get a butt load
24:06
of data for self driving verbo taxis.
24:17
Just a warning before this episode starts, there will be
24:21
some adult type content, some mature type content in this
24:26
episode. So don't play it out loud.
24:30
For what that's worth. And it's about XAI.
24:33
Ashley St. Clair sexualized images of her
24:37
swastikas, Nazi. It's a lot going on.
24:43
This is your warning. And let's get into it though,
24:46
because it's interesting to see where AI is headed as far as
24:52
image manipulation goes. Ashley St.
24:55
Clair has sued XAI, alleging Garack Image Tool produced
25:00
sexualized images of her. Now this case is on Grok's
25:04
behavior on X and whether XAI can be held responsible for what
25:09
its product outputs. Now, the filing says the AI
25:13
produced images of Saint Clair in a string bikini covered with
25:16
swastikas. The event depicted her as a
25:18
child in a bikini. And is XAI legally responsible
25:24
for what users make Grok generate?
25:30
There's also a number you should hear.
25:32
A review said Grok turned out roughly one non consensual image
25:36
per minute. And today we're going to go
25:39
through what Sinclair filed, how X and XAI responded, which
25:43
governments moved against Grok, and what could happen next for X
25:49
and XAI and Grok. And then we're going to talk
25:52
about where the pressure points are still for the platform and
25:58
for the law. And we'll go right into that
26:00
right after this very short break.
26:04
Now, Ashley Saint Claire in this lawsuit targets Xai over images
26:08
Grok generated of her. She's the mother of one of Elon
26:12
Musk's children. And she says the product enabled
26:15
harassment that spilled across all of X.
26:20
The filing tries to make the maker of the EI directly liable
26:24
for what the users prompted it To do this, the lawsuit
26:29
describes explicit images, including one that put her in a
26:32
string bikini stamped with swastikas and another that
26:35
portrayed her as a child in a bikini.
26:39
Now that changes the stakes because the images are both
26:41
sexualized and, in her account, weaponized with hateful symbols.
26:46
The filing also notes the Saint Claire's Jewish, which heightens
26:50
the harm described. Now think of the feed on X and
26:56
this photo keeps surfacing as you scrolled through.
27:00
Hundreds of these photos were made.
27:02
There were different iterations from different people.
27:07
They took the original image and tweaked it and also used
27:10
original images of her to make these images.
27:14
Now her lawyer argues the product itself isn't reasonably
27:17
safe and says Grok enabled the abuse by creating and
27:20
distributing non consensual images that were then published
27:24
on X. It raises a core claim in
27:26
product liability terms. The tool as designed allowed
27:30
foreseeable harm. Now if a court up sepsis framing
27:36
you get a direct path to damages for injuries tied to how the
27:40
model behaves for Ashley St. Clair.
27:44
Now let's just talk about deepfakes here for a second,
27:48
because we have to understand this term.
27:50
It means a synthetic image or video generated by AI that
27:54
convincingly looks real. The simple definition matters
28:00
because the harm that Sinclair alleges is tied to images that
28:05
appear real to just normal people to casual viewers
28:09
flipping through X. The filing says Sinclair asked
28:13
for removal of the images and filed reports.
28:16
She says she then received an e-mail stating there was no
28:19
violation in that much of the content stayed public on Grok's
28:22
account for over a week. That puts pressure on X's safety
28:26
systems because the claim isn't just about that the comment or
28:30
the content just appeared, but that it remained up and they did
28:33
nothing about it. The lawsuit also says X's
28:36
reporting structure is defective and calls Grok unreasonably
28:39
dangerous. As designed, that's adds a
28:43
design and process claim to the product liability theory.
28:47
And if this is all true, that argument makes future incidents
28:51
more likely, not less likely, which increases exposure.
28:56
And we're going to talk about some definition about guardrails
29:00
here. These are built in rules that
29:02
try to stop an AI from producing prohibited content.
29:07
X, through a statement shared on the platform, said that it
29:11
implemented a technical measure to stop the Grok account from
29:14
editing images of real people in revealing clothing, like
29:18
bikinis. Company also said the
29:20
restriction applies to everyone, including paid subscribers.
29:24
That limits some obvious prompts, but it doesn't answer
29:26
broader questions about how new workarounds get blocked.
29:30
So what do we know right now about this?
29:33
I did an experiment last night because I was researching a
29:37
story and I was just wondering what would happen if I typed
29:42
into X, typed into Grok, and I said make an image of Donald
29:50
Trump in a bikini. Sure enough, 3 seconds later,
29:56
Donald Trump, the president of the United States, was in a very
30:00
revealing bikini. And I thought that's horrible.
30:05
That is disgusting. Actually, I didn't want to see
30:07
that. And then I thought, well, maybe
30:10
this guard rails up because Elon Musk doesn't want people doing
30:15
that to him. So I did it for, of course,
30:17
research sake. I typed the same thing into
30:20
Grok. I said, make, make a image of
30:24
Elon Musk in a bikini. Sure enough, a few seconds
30:28
later, there was an image of Elon Musk in a bikini and his
30:33
body had morphed and he's filled out the bikini.
30:35
Same thing with Donald Trump. And it was disgusting.
30:38
I just want to see if these guardrails guardrails were
30:41
actually up and they are not. These revealing images are still
30:47
allowed on X. So Ashley St.
30:50
Clair has a point. There are no guardrails even
30:54
now. And this is after X has actually
30:57
released a statement saying that this is not possible anymore.
31:03
So XS Safety Team instead of removes child abuse material and
31:08
non consensual nudity and reports offenders to law
31:10
enforcement when necessary. It opens a compliance lane for
31:14
the platform and if the rules are clear and enforced, the
31:16
company can point to an enforcement regime.
31:19
So the lawsuit, however, challenges both the speed and
31:23
effectiveness of these actions. In this case, it seems like
31:27
there are not many guardrails on X right now, but if there are
31:33
and they want to enforce them, they have the ability to do so.
31:38
So they see Sam. We have to talk about SEE Sam,
31:41
too, because some people aren't familiar with this.
31:43
It's an acronym for Child Sexual Abuse Material, which is illegal
31:47
content involving minors. Platforms that encounter see Sam
31:50
must remove it and report it to authorities, which adds
31:53
substantial legal risk if they fail to do so.
31:57
Now, does that count with somebody making a prompt?
32:01
That's what regulators are going to work on.
32:03
Grok has reportedly blocked in Malaysia and Indonesia, and
32:06
authorities in the UK and in California, where the company is
32:10
based, are investigating the company.
32:14
That changes the operational map because a blocked market in
32:18
active pros can force product changes, can slow down releases
32:23
or add more legal obligations to the company.
32:27
It's. No longer just.
32:28
One U.S. court the Content Analysis firms review estimated
32:33
that Grok was generating roughly one non consensual image per
32:36
minute during a recent spike. That is it.
32:41
At scale. Which is exactly what worries
32:43
regulated plaintiffs and advertisers.
32:45
And if that number holds, it makes the harm systemic rather
32:49
than anecdotal. It's that just one person.
32:50
It's the whole platform. It's just scummy people all over
32:53
the platform. You have a lawsuit, ongoing
32:56
investigations, and now you have a volume problem.
33:00
You have millions of these images out there all over the
33:03
platform. How does Elon Musk and his team
33:07
battle this? Elon Musk posted that he was not
33:10
aware of naked underage images generated by Grok and said the
33:13
system only produces images when users ask it to.
33:18
He added the Grok refuses illegal requests and that
33:21
adversarial prompt hacking can trigger unexpected behavior that
33:24
engineers then we'll patch that defense is not that good to be
33:31
honest with you. You should have these guardrails
33:33
up way before anybody does anything horrible like this any.
33:39
Elon Musk is saying that Grok. As a tool, obeys laws but
33:44
sometimes encounters some edge cases and therefore they can't
33:49
really do anything about it right the filing.
33:53
Says that. Sinclair sought both compensary
33:57
and punitive damages. Compensatory damages repay
34:00
losses like emotional distress or lost income, or punitive
34:04
damages are meant to punish and deter.
34:07
It opens a big financial risk if a court decides the conduct
34:11
warrants punishment beyond compensation, punitive damages.
34:15
Are punishment. Money, not reimbursement money.
34:18
Now, the lawsuit also alleges some X actions that go beyond
34:21
removal decisions and says her account was demonetized and that
34:25
more images of her were generated after she objected.
34:29
Now if that's. Accurate the.
34:31
Strength is the claim that the system retaliated and that the
34:34
company had noticed an ongoing system of harm so.
34:40
These claims cover. Design moderation and alleged
34:44
retaliation now and. I've been digging.
34:48
Through the analytics of this show right now, and I've noticed
34:51
that 37% of you are following the show.
34:54
And for you, I'm your biggest fan.
34:56
Thank you so much for following the show.
34:58
Hitting the subscribe button. Now there's 63% of you that
35:01
probably listen to the show sometimes, and you might have
35:04
listened to two or three episodes and just forgot to hit
35:06
the subscribe or follow button. Or you're new here and you'd
35:10
like the show and you want more like this.
35:12
You want more info about SpaceX, NASA, Space Flight, Tesla, Elon
35:18
Xai, Grok, all the stuff, right? And I've been an independent
35:21
journalist covering all of that, Elon Musk, Space Flight, SpaceX,
35:25
etcetera for 6 plus years. I actually embedded myself for
35:28
my YouTube channel at SpaceX, at Boca Chica, Texas, at Starbase
35:33
for about a year on the side of the road because I love this so
35:36
much. So I've been doing this for like
35:38
6 years and I intend on continuing doing it for the next
35:41
10. And all I ask from you is one
35:45
second of your time to hit the follower subscribe button
35:48
because it helps us so much on this platform.
35:51
And with your support, we can continue to grow and do better
35:55
things. So if you want to help us do
35:57
better, please hit the subscribe or follow button on the platform
36:01
that you're listening or watching on right now.
36:02
I'm extremely grateful and blessed to have you here in this
36:06
community. So thank you.
36:07
Thank you. Now let's go back into this
36:10
filing. It also asserts that Crock and X
36:13
AI had explicit knowledge that she did not consent because she
36:16
told the company to remove the images.
36:19
This is a notice element now, which in many cases is a
36:22
threshold for liability if harmful content stays up.
36:26
If the company knew and failed to act quickly, the plaintiff's
36:30
argument gets stronger. So Ashley St.
36:32
Clair's argument gets much stronger because she asked them
36:37
to remove it and they did nothing.
36:40
So there's other. Contacts too her.
36:41
Family. Musk and Saint Clair have a son
36:44
born in 2024 and are estranged, and Musk has signaled he plans
36:48
to seek custody now so that doesn't.
36:51
Determine. Liability, but it adds public
36:54
attention and can shape how both sides talk about the case,
36:57
including the courts. Meanwhile, XS public statements
37:01
keep returning to rules and enforcement.
37:03
The company says it removes high priority violations and zeroes
37:06
out non consensual sexual content, and it provides points
37:10
to reporting to law enforcement for CSAN Dispositions X as
37:16
proactive. But the lawsuit argues the
37:18
experience on the ground was slower and less effective.
37:21
So where does this go next? Though Musk had not publicly
37:24
responded to the lawsuit as of today, which suggests an initial
37:29
his replies may appear on the platform rather than informal
37:33
court filings, which usually speaks out publicly before the
37:36
court, but maybe not this time. But he has said that X is, and
37:41
XAI and Grok and X have all been working together to battle this.
37:46
But also it's up to the users to generate the content, so they
37:50
can't really police it. I guess that's what happens when
37:53
you destroy the safety team when you take over Twitter.
37:57
The investigation still continues in the UK and
38:01
California and that suggests this issue will evolve through
38:05
multiple venues, not just one courtroom and overseas as well.
38:10
So this. Is a filing that.
38:12
Accuses an AI product of generating sexualized, hateful
38:15
and in one case, childlike images of a real person, and it
38:19
connects those images to moderation and design choices on
38:23
a major platform. The company says it has safety
38:25
measures, it removed violations, and it avoids illegal outputs,
38:30
while the plaintiff says those steps did not work when it
38:32
mattered. The next phase will test whether
38:35
courts treat AI image engines like ordinary software or like
38:38
products with a duty to prevent specific harms for everybody.
38:48
Iran just pulled off something. Russia failed to do In Ukraine,
38:51
the regime deployed military grade jamming equipment that
38:54
crippled Starling satellite connections across the country,
38:57
driving packet loss as high as 80% in major cities like Tehran.
39:01
For an estimated 40,050 thousand Iranians who smuggled Starlink
39:04
terminals into the country, that satellite dish was their last
39:08
connection to the outside world during nationwide protests that
39:11
have now killed around 2000 people.
39:14
Starlink was supposed to be unjammable, the ultimate bypass
39:17
for authoritarian censorship, the technology that kept
39:20
Ukrainian forces connected when Russia tried to knock them
39:23
offline. So how did Iran succeed where
39:26
the Russian military could not? We're going to break down
39:29
exactly how Iran executed this digital siege by SpaceX.
39:32
Engineers are now racing to push software and firmware updates
39:36
and what Trump and Musk discussed in a phone call this
39:38
week after restoring access. We will also look at the bizarre
39:42
situation where the Ayatollah's X account kept posting while 90
39:46
million Iranians went dark and examine what this attack means
39:50
for Starling's role as a tool against censorship worldwide.
39:53
The technology behind Starling's vulnerability, it's more
39:56
straightforward than you might think.
39:58
We're right into that right after this very short break now.
40:03
Iran activated its. Internet kill switch on January
40:07
8th, dropping national connectivity to roughly 1% of
40:10
normal levels within hours. The blackout extended across all
40:14
31 provinces, affecting mobile networks, landlines and even
40:18
domestic apps like ride hailing services, Snap and TAPSI.
40:21
Banking systems went offline. International phone calls were
40:25
blocked net blocks. The Internet monitoring
40:27
organization confirmed the nationwide blackout and
40:30
described it as one of the most comprehensive shutdowns in
40:33
recent history. Starlink terminals, previously
40:35
the fail safe for activists and journalists during the 2022
40:39
protests, became the regime's next target.
40:43
Now the attack method is blunt but effective.
40:46
Starlink terminals require GPS signals to locate themselves and
40:49
establish connections with orbiting satellites.
40:51
Iranian authorities deployed a high power microwave jammers
40:55
that interfere with the radio frequency signals between ground
40:58
terminals and satellites. The Director of Digital Rights
41:02
and Security at the Miyam Group tracked the degradation in real
41:06
time, any observed packet loss starting at 30% as protesters
41:11
intensified, then climbing to more than 80% by 10:00 PM local
41:15
time on January 8th. Rashidi said he has monitored
41:20
Iranian Internet access for 20 years has never seen anything
41:23
like this level for of interference.
41:25
The International Telecommunication Unit United
41:28
Nations agency previously called on Iran to stop jamming
41:31
satellite signals, but there was requests have been ignored and
41:35
the technical approach differs fundamentally from a traditional
41:38
network shutdown. When I ran cuts terrestrial
41:41
Internet, it simply orders the companies.
41:44
There are two of them that connect Iran to the global web.
41:46
To stop routing traffic. Satellite jamming requires
41:49
active electronic warfare specialized equipment that cost
41:53
significant money and requires expertise to operate.
41:56
Experts believe the equipment came from Russia or China or was
41:59
developed domestically using knowledge gained from these
42:02
partnerships. Or Iran has jammed satellite
42:04
television for decades using similar tech, but the regime
42:09
appears to have adapted those systems to low Earth orbit.
42:13
Constellations in the jamming specifically targeted upload
42:16
bandwidth, the exact capability protesters need to send video
42:20
evidence of the crackdown to international media.
42:24
Download speeds degraded as well, but the upload throttling
42:27
served a clear tactical purpose. Now SpaceX face the same problem
42:32
in Ukraine. Starting in 2022, Russian forces
42:35
attempted to jam Starling terminals on the front lines and
42:38
SpaceX engineers which software updates within hours that
42:41
restored connectivity. The company demonstrated an
42:44
ability to adapt faster than military jamming operations
42:47
could respond. Orion appears to have studied
42:50
that playbook. Nasnet, a group that helps
42:52
Iranians access Starlink, reported Saturday that Spacex's
42:56
technical team pushed a software update that partially restore
42:59
the service. The group called the
43:01
interference an ongoing game of cat and mouse and warned that
43:04
conditions could change again or even get worse.
43:08
Now this back and forth doing SpaceX software patches and
43:11
Iranian jamming adjustments could continue indefinitely with
43:15
each side adapting to the other's countermeasures.
43:18
Now I've been digging into the analytics of the show and
43:21
noticed that 37% of you are following the channel.
43:24
For you, I love you. I'm forever grateful for you.
43:27
The other 63% of you haven't hit the follow or subscribe button
43:31
and you could have watched a couple episodes or listened to a
43:33
couple podcasts and been like, I like this, but I just haven't
43:36
hit that. You just haven't hit the
43:37
subscribe button. I do that all the time.
43:39
I'll listen to a show for a week straight and then eventually I'm
43:43
like, I just subscribed to this. Maybe that's you, but I've been
43:47
an independent journalist for the last six to seven, eight
43:51
years, somewhere around there covering Elon Musk, SpaceX,
43:54
Space Flight technology. And I'm going to continue for
43:58
the next 10 years. And I could do that with one
44:02
thing, one second of your time. I need your help.
44:05
Hit the follow or subscribe button.
44:07
It helps out the show tremendously.
44:09
You don't even know how much it helps.
44:10
And wherever you are on whatever platform, please leave a five
44:13
star review if you have a chance.
44:16
I'm extremely grateful and blessed to have you in this
44:18
community and for you to be here right now.
44:20
So thank you so much for that. Now, the Trump administration
44:26
responded. This week, with direct
44:28
intervention, White House press secretary Kamlan Livett
44:31
confirmed Monday that President Trump and Musk discussed
44:35
restoring Starlink access in Iran.
44:38
Sources familiar with the matter told reporters that Musk green
44:41
latest engineers to work on a solution over the weekend and
44:44
expressed full support for efforts restoring the
44:46
connection. And by Tuesday, SpaceX had
44:50
waived subscription fees for Iranian Starlink accounts,
44:53
activating terminals that were previously inactive and removing
44:56
payment barriers for users who already possessed equipment.
45:00
The executive director of the technology nonprofit Holistic
45:04
Resilience, Ahmad Ahmadian, confirmed the change directly
45:08
with Iranian users inside the country.
45:11
He described the process as plug and connect, assuming users can
45:15
find clear sky access despite the ongoing jamming
45:18
interference. And the legal stakes for Iranian
45:21
users remain severe despite their support from SpaceX.
45:25
After the 12 day war between Iran and Israel last June, the
45:28
regime passed an anti espionage law that criminalized Starling
45:31
possession. Personal use carries prison
45:35
terms up to two years. If authorities link a terminal
45:38
to espionage, the punishment can be death.
45:40
Security forces are now actively hunting Starling users by
45:43
tracking the high frequency signals emitted by the dishes
45:46
conducting raids on houses suspected of harboring the
45:49
equipment. Despite these risks, demand for
45:52
terminals surged over the summer war, with smuggling units at
45:57
significant premiums in the black market, and estimates put
46:00
the current number of subscribers at 40 to 50,000
46:03
users. Now, that's a small fraction of
46:05
Iran's 92 million population, but a critical lifeline for
46:08
getting information outside of the country.
46:12
You know the economic. Damage from the.
46:13
Broader Internet shutdown compounds the regime's
46:16
challenges. Now my analysis puts losses at
46:21
approximately 1.6, $1,000,000 per.
46:24
Hour. Which translates to potential
46:27
monthly damage exceeding a billion dollars if the blackout
46:30
continues at current levels. There's banks, there's
46:33
hospitals, pharmacies and businesses cannot function
46:36
without the Internet. Many shops did not open during
46:39
the shutdown because they could not process digital
46:42
transactions. The regime has demonstrated
46:44
willingness to absorb these losses to suppress information
46:48
flow, but the financial strain adds pressure to an economy
46:52
already buckling under international sanctions and
46:55
domestic mismanagement. Now the protests began in late
46:58
December. Were precisely these economic
47:01
conditions shopkeepers in Tehran's Grand Bazaar angry
47:04
about the collapsing real currency and rising prices that
47:08
made basic goods unaffordable. Human rights organizations.
47:12
Report the. Death toll from the crackdown
47:14
has reached at least around 2000 confirmed deaths, though groups
47:20
like the US based Human rights activist news agency put the
47:24
number a little bit higher. Norwegian based Iran Human
47:27
Rights warns the actual figure could be much higher because the
47:30
communication blackouts prevents accuracy counting.
47:34
Now Iranian Nobel laureate sure ran about a warned of a
47:39
potential massacre occurring under the cover of a sweeping
47:43
communications blackout. The regime has created a
47:46
whitelist system that allows state online media to post while
47:49
ordinary citizens remain cut off.
47:52
The Ayatollahs X account continue publishing throughout
47:55
the shutdown. This is in stark illustration of
47:58
how the regime maintains its own communication channels while
48:01
silencing every single normal person.
48:06
Now this is a critical vulnerability in the assumption
48:08
that satellite Internet can defeat authoritarian censorship.
48:12
Sterling's 9000 satellites and shifting frequencies were
48:15
supposed to make it impossible to block.
48:17
The system worked against Russian jamming in Ukraine
48:20
because SpaceX could adapt faster than military
48:23
bureaucracies. Moran's approach suggests that a
48:26
determined government with access to sophisticated jamming
48:29
equipment can degrade satellite service enough to achieve its
48:32
goals. You do not need a global kill
48:35
switch to cripple the network, you just make it unstable, slow,
48:39
and unreliable enough that it barely even works.
48:41
Sterling still functions in some border areas in rural regions
48:45
where jamming coverage is thinner, but the major
48:48
population centers where protests concentrate have seen
48:51
greater severe degradation, and Iran.
48:55
Prove the satellite. Internet isn't invulnerable to
48:58
state control. Combination of terrestrial kill
49:01
switches and military grade jamming can degrade even systems
49:04
designed to resist censorship. SpaceX is pushing those
49:07
countermeasures, though the Trump administration is applying
49:10
pressure and subscription fees have been waived.
49:13
This third major Internet shutdown in Iran's recent
49:16
history, following 2019 and 2022, shows the regime has
49:19
learned from each previous crisis and improved its digital
49:23
suppression capabilities. The outcome now depends on
49:25
whether SpaceX engineers can win the software battle against
49:28
Iranian jammers, whether more terminals can be smuggled into
49:31
the country, and whether the estimated 50,000 terminal owners
49:35
can access enough signal to document what happens next in
49:38
the streets. The protests continue into their
49:41
third week in every video that gets uploaded, even if it's very
49:45
slow and if escapes. The blackout arrives.
49:48
Through a signal that Iran is actively trying to kill and
49:51
suppress. Elon Musk recently suggested.
49:55
That in 10 to 20 years, saving for retirement will not matter.
50:00
Arguing that advantages in AI, energy and robotics could usher
50:03
in an era of abundance that renders traditional nest eggs
50:07
obsolete. Comments prompted swift pushback
50:10
from retirement scholars and wealth managers.
50:14
He said the vision overlooks stubborn real world constraints
50:17
and household risks. Now Musk's case rests on a
50:20
sweeping productivity boom, smarter software, cheaper power
50:24
and ambitious automation driving down the cost of goods and
50:28
services from healthcare to education, until scarcity fades.
50:33
Even if parts of that prospect materialize, it does not follow
50:36
that workers can safely stop building financial reserves
50:39
today. Now, researchers at leading
50:42
retirement centers note that near term risks remain
50:45
unavoidable market volatility, job loss, illness and potential
50:51
changes to public benefits. Several emphasized that Social
50:55
Security faces funding challenges that, absent
50:57
legislative fixes, could increase the burden on personal
51:00
savings rather than eliminate it.
51:02
Advisors also stressed a basic point.
51:05
Future abundance is just an idea.
51:08
Rent, groceries and medical bills are always going to be
51:12
there now. Some critics focused on
51:14
distribution rather than technology.
51:17
They argue that whether abundance translates into broad
51:20
financial security depends on political choices.
51:22
Taxation transfers in the design of social insurance, which
51:26
rarely move in lockstep with engineering breakthroughs.
51:29
Innovation can arrive quickly. Equitable systems to share its
51:34
gains typically take decades now.
51:38
Others pointed to history. Past technology waves lifted
51:41
productivity without reliably shortening work weeks or even
51:44
distributing wealth. 1 researcher recalled that in the
51:48
1950s, some employees at a defense think tank skipped
51:52
pension contributions because nuclear war felt inevitable.
51:56
That never came. The retirement shortfalls
52:00
definitely did, though. Now for households deciding what
52:04
to do now, the guidance from academics and practitioners is
52:08
consistent. Keep continuing to do what
52:12
you're doing. Contribute to workplace plans,
52:14
at least enough to capture an employer match.
52:17
Maintain an emergency fund so short term shocks don't force
52:20
withdrawals. Revisit portfolio risk.
52:23
As retirement approaches and assumes Social Security will
52:26
remain an important but incomplete pillar of support, it
52:30
might go away. And if a world of abundance
52:32
arrives on an aggressive timetable, accumulated savings
52:36
will become an extra margin of freedom in a cheaper economy, an
52:40
outcome few would regret. The broader debate remains
52:45
unresolved. Though technological optimism
52:49
imagines a future where scarcity recedes.
52:51
The personal finance discipline recognizes the bills come due on
52:56
schedule. Until policy catches up with the
52:59
promise of abundance, most households are just better off
53:03
to save. And you treat abundance as a
53:07
potential upside just in case. So you'll have this nest egg.
53:11
Let's say you save up to $100,000 and the abundance does
53:16
come. We've been promised abundance in
53:18
the past. Henry Ford for one.
53:21
Let's just talk about that. Henry Ford talked about how
53:24
everybody would be able to afford pretty much everything
53:28
because cars would make it cheaper to transport goods,
53:31
which it did of course. That's much easier.
53:35
Than a train or a plane. But the vehicles transporting,
53:41
they needed drivers. Those drivers needed jobs.
53:45
So those. Drivers got paid.
53:48
The abundance. Never came though.
53:50
We still work long hours. Some of us don't make enough
53:53
money to survive. The abundance never came.
53:56
It's tried to happen a bunch of times.
53:59
Basically, it's rich people saying that abundance is coming
54:02
because of what rich people do. They already have abundance.
54:07
They already have everything they'll ever need.
54:09
And for us, we have to fall back on the same old ideas.
54:13
We never know what's going to happen after the next paycheck.
54:16
Your employer could fire you. No matter how secure you think
54:20
you are. Your employer could just pull
54:23
the plug on you. They might give you a little bit
54:24
of notice, but also you don't know how the financials are
54:27
doing at your company unless you're in that department.
54:31
Case in. Point recently.
54:33
I was hired on as a contract worker.
54:36
I had a three month contract with a company.
54:41
After 2 1/2 months the company said hey we ran out of money.
54:47
We did 2 giant acquisitions. Everybody that's a contractor is
54:51
not a contractor anymore. So I didn't have that extra half
54:54
a month to. Work and after.
54:57
That it was a contractor to hire position, so now they're not
55:01
going to hire me full time. Because of that.
55:03
You never know what's going to happen.
55:06
And because of things like that, I need your support.
55:09
I've been doing this show for six or seven years straight and
55:13
I will continue doing this for the next 10 years.
55:15
And all I need is one minute of your time.
55:17
One second, actually hit the subscribe or follow button.
55:20
You don't even know how much that means to the show, how much
55:24
that means to me personally. And if you have been listening
55:26
to the show for a while, I get it.
55:28
Sometimes you forget to hit the subscribe or follow button.
55:31
I do it all the time on YouTube. I do it all the time on podcasts
55:33
and I every once in a while I'm like, Oh yeah, this show is
55:36
great. I don't know why I have not
55:38
followed it. It's in my recommendations,
55:41
sure. But on podcasting, it's very
55:43
important to follow or subscribe to a show because that's how we
55:48
get our audience. And if we have a bigger
55:50
audience, it means I can continue doing this and making
55:54
this podcast better. Also let.
55:57
Me know in the comments if you. Have comments on your podcast
55:59
player? What do you think of?
56:01
This do you think there's? Going to be over abundance with
56:06
robo taxis. You're still going to need money
56:09
to do all the things that you need to do.
56:11
You're still going to need to eat food.
56:13
You'll be able to. Of course, you'll still be able
56:17
to. Own a car?
56:18
You'll be able to own a home, but if the.
56:21
Price is so. Expensive for you where you
56:24
live. There might be time to think
56:27
about living someplace else, someplace with a lower threshold
56:33
to buy a home. There are plenty of places
56:35
outside of the United States that are much cheaper than the
56:39
United States. I mean, if you go to the grocery
56:42
store and you have one bag of groceries and it cost $200,
56:47
that's a. Problem.
56:49
And if this. Abundance is.
56:51
A promise that Elon Musk and the ultra mega wealthy can predict
56:57
and they can actually make this promise come true.
56:59
That's great. It's never happened in the past
57:01
and it will never happen. How many thousands of years have
57:04
humans been humans? The rich people get richer and
57:08
the poor people stay poor. Sometimes there's a nice middle
57:11
class. Some places all over the world,
57:14
there is a nice middle class. In the United States right now,
57:17
there's not really a middle class anymore.
57:20
You can't have a regular nine to five job and feed a family of
57:26
four. Say if you have two kids, two
57:30
parents and may have a dog, might have a cat, white pick a
57:33
fence, the American dream. You know, you can have that big
57:36
house. You could buy a house with that
57:38
wage and also buy a car and also go on vacation and have some
57:41
time off. That doesn't exist anymore.
57:44
You have to have a side hustle in your side hustles, have to
57:46
have side hustles just to get by.
57:49
You can't just have. One person.
57:51
Making the money anymore, you'd have to have two people in the
57:54
household making money and that's just the normal life of a
57:58
normal person. I'm not saying some people are
58:00
outside of that because of course there are or some people
58:03
that make a bunch of money and live in a place where it doesn't
58:06
cost as much, but for. The most of us?
58:09
Most. People here the abundance,
58:13
according to these experts, is not going to come.
58:16
But if it does, that's great, that's great.
58:19
Maybe it's. Another bubble, maybe people.
58:20
Are going to start making a bunch of money, but also.
58:24
Remember that, Elon? Musk says a lot of things, and
58:27
I'm here as the podcaster, as the.
58:31
Podcast about Elon Musk. The original Elon Musk podcast,
58:35
Take everything he says with a great assault because I know
58:38
I've been covering him for almost 10 years now.
58:41
FSD, Remember when that was going to happen?
58:44
Almost a decade ago and it still hasn't happened.
58:47
And not actual FSD, it's a still driver assist.
58:52
So remember when he says something, don't take it to
58:56
heart. Just remember it's a great idea.
58:59
He has some great ideas and eventually maybe it might
59:01
happen, but the overabundance of power, overabundance of food,
59:05
overabundance of wealth, take it.
59:08
All with a grain of salt. So.
59:11
That's it for today, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each
59:14
other, and I'll see you in the next one.
59:17
America's. Return to deep space.
59:18
With people on board is imminent.
59:22
NASA's Artemis 2 mission, the first crude voyage beyond low
59:27
Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972, has a launch window
59:30
opening February 6th of 2026 with a fully stacked Space
59:36
Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft scheduled to roll out
59:40
to launchpad 39-B on January 17th of 2026.
59:46
And after resolving critical heat shield and life support
59:49
system concerns that delayed the mission seven months, NASA
59:53
officials expressed confidence the vehicle was ready to safely
59:56
carry 4 astronauts around the moon on a 10 day journey that
1:00:02
will see them travel 4600 miles beyond the lunar far side,
1:00:06
farther than any. Buddy has ever been in human
1:00:11
history. Now, the most significant
1:00:13
technical hurdle facing Artemis 2 stemmed from unexpected damage
1:00:17
to Orion's heat shield during Artemis 1 mission in December
1:00:21
2022, Engineers discovered that the AB coat ablative material
1:00:26
cracked and shed unevenly across approximately 100 locations
1:00:32
during re entry. NASA's investigation, completed
1:00:35
in December of 2024, identified the root cause.
1:00:39
During Orion's planned skip entry maneuver, where the
1:00:42
capsule skips in and out of the atmosphere, heat accumulated
1:00:46
inside the heat shield faster than gases could escape or vent
1:00:51
through the material, creating internal pressure that caused
1:00:54
fracturing. Now, rather than replacing the
1:00:57
already installed heat shield, which would have caused
1:01:00
significant additional delays, possibly six months to a year,
1:01:04
NASA opted for a trajectory modification.
1:01:08
Now, Artemis 2 will fly a shortened skip entry profile
1:01:11
that avoids the temperature conditions that triggered gas
1:01:14
generation. Now.
1:01:15
This reduces available launch opportunities by approximately
1:01:19
50% compared to Artemis One, but keeps the mission on track.
1:01:25
Rick Henfling, lead Artemis 2 entry flight directory confirm
1:01:30
the modification is not going to replicate the temperature
1:01:33
environment which was conducive to that gas generative rate now
1:01:39
additional technical issues resolved in recent months
1:01:41
include faulty motor valve circuitry in the environmental
1:01:45
control and life support system. The ECLSSA bent flight
1:01:50
termination system cable discovered during final
1:01:52
checkouts, which was replaced in January of twenty 26th 5th and
1:01:57
an Orion pressurization valve that exhibited problems before
1:02:02
December's countdown test. NASA also swapped RS25 engine
1:02:06
E2O63 with E2O61 in April after discovering A hydraulic leak,
1:02:12
now the first ever vertical RS25 replacement in the program
1:02:16
history. Now the four astronaut crew
1:02:19
completed a crucial countdown demonstration test on December
1:02:23
20th of last year, marking the final major crew milestone
1:02:26
before launch. Commander Reid Weisman, pilot
1:02:30
Victor Glover and mission specialist Christina Koch and
1:02:34
Jeremy Hansen suited up in their Orion Crew Survival System
1:02:37
suits, performed the ceremonial walk out from astronaut crew
1:02:41
quarters, traveled to the VAB, the Vehicle Assembly building,
1:02:45
rode the elevator 275 feet to the crew access arm, and boarded
1:02:50
the Orion spacecraft for a full 5.5 hour rehearsal of launch day
1:02:55
procedures. The countdown proceeded to T -,
1:02:58
29 seconds before the planned cut off teams.
1:03:03
Successfully navigated. Real time challenges including
1:03:06
audio communications problems and life support system issues
1:03:09
during closeout demonstrating readiness to handle these
1:03:13
contingencies. The test was originally
1:03:15
scheduled for November 19th but was postponed.
1:03:18
Do whatever we blemish on a thermal barrier around the crew
1:03:21
access hatch that required patching.
1:03:23
Now the crew has trained intensively for over 2.5 years
1:03:27
since their April 2023 assignment, completing more than
1:03:30
30 integrated mission simulations with flight control
1:03:33
teams. On July 2025, suited crew test
1:03:36
marked the first time all four astronauts entered the fully
1:03:40
powered spacecraft together, running through emergency
1:03:43
scenarios including sudden cabin leaks and life support
1:03:46
functions. And the Artemis 2 crew have and
1:03:51
the Artemis 2 crew are going to represent multiple historic
1:03:56
firsts. Victor Glover will become the
1:03:58
first person of color to travel to the moon.
1:04:00
Christina Koch, who holds the record for longest single Space
1:04:02
Flight by a woman at 328 days, will become the first woman to
1:04:06
journey to the moon. Jeremy Hansen, a Canadian Space
1:04:10
Agency astronaut and Royal Canadian Air Force fighter
1:04:13
pilot, will become the first non American to leave Earth's orbit
1:04:16
and travel to the moon. Commander Reid.
1:04:19
Weissman. A former Navy test pilot and
1:04:22
chief of NASA's astronaut office leads this crew now.
1:04:28
It's going to be. About 10 days for this mission.
1:04:31
It's going to follow a multi translunar injection trajectory.
1:04:35
Here's the days and what's going to happen.
1:04:38
Day one launch aboard the SLS and Orion will then enter a high
1:04:43
elliptical Earth orbit. And then during day one and day
1:04:47
2, the crew will test life support systems.
1:04:49
While they're orbiting, they'll perform manual flight
1:04:52
demonstrations, conduct proximity operations with the
1:04:56
spent upper stage, and then as it goes into day three, they're
1:05:01
going to do. A trans.
1:05:02
Lunar Injection burn which sends Orion hurtling towards the Moon
1:05:08
days 3. Through six will.
1:05:10
Be a four day outbound coast. No thrusters.
1:05:14
They're just coasting towards. The Moon crew continues systems
1:05:17
verification. So the whole time they're going
1:05:19
to be working Day 6. And seven, they're going.
1:05:23
To fly by the moon approximately 4600 miles beyond the moon's far
1:05:27
side, the crew may observe the fully illuminated far side and
1:05:32
this will be the time that the first humans ever will see this
1:05:37
directly and A7 to. 10. Free return trajectory back
1:05:42
towards Earth Day 10 is go time. The modified skip re entry we
1:05:47
talked about earlier will happen and then the splashdown in the
1:05:51
Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.
1:05:56
Now, Glover has said that they're testing the Oran
1:06:00
capsule, they're testing the suits, they're testing the
1:06:03
landing and recovery procedures, they're testing the flight
1:06:06
control team. And it's a much more hostile
1:06:09
environment because we're so far away from home.
1:06:14
Mostly people go to the International Space Station now.
1:06:17
They'll go in low Earth orbit. It's the first time in 50 years
1:06:21
plus that humans will be going to as far away as the moon and
1:06:26
then 4600 miles beyond the moon's far side, the farthest
1:06:31
they've ever gone, which is incredible.
1:06:33
But the path to February 2026 has been marked by significant
1:06:37
schedule shifts. This was targeted for late 2024.
1:06:41
The 1st or the second flight, Artemis, slipped to September
1:06:45
2025, then to April 2026. Following the December 2024
1:06:49
announcement of heat shield investigation results,
1:06:52
integration efficiencies allowed NASA to pull the target forward
1:06:56
to February 2026 by March 2025. Now, Jared Isaacman was sworn in
1:07:03
December 18th. He's the hilarious dawn.
1:07:06
He was a, he's a billionaire. He's a NASA administrator now.
1:07:10
And he was sworn in December 18th after a prolonged
1:07:13
nomination process. It went back and forth.
1:07:15
He's Elon's friend. So Trump didn't like him.
1:07:18
There's politics going on there, but he's in.
1:07:21
And within the next three years, he says we're going to land
1:07:24
American astronauts again on the moon.
1:07:26
But it's time with the infrastructure to stay now.
1:07:30
When he. Says this.
1:07:32
He's saying we are battling. China in space?
1:07:36
Basically, if China needs to go to the moon for some reason, we
1:07:41
want to go there again. But we're not just going to go
1:07:42
there and just grab a couple rocks, couple moon stones.
1:07:46
We want to set down a base of operations.
1:07:49
And that is so we can flex our muscles and beat our chests and
1:07:53
be stronger than other people on the earth, which is fair enough.
1:07:57
That's what we did for Apollo. But do we really need to do that
1:08:00
still? Are we still trying to beat our
1:08:02
chests and being better than everybody?
1:08:04
Yes, that's, I guess that's what we're doing now.
1:08:05
But Jared Eisenman is not about that.
1:08:08
Jared is a science first administrator for NASA.
1:08:14
He's a. Really nice person.
1:08:15
I've had the pleasure to DM him a few times and every time it's
1:08:20
been very nice and he seems to be a really nice person every
1:08:24
time I've talked to him. Nothing but help, nothing but
1:08:27
good vibes. So I'm glad Jared is in this
1:08:31
position. He's going to do wonderful
1:08:34
things for NASA and I hope that it all goes well over there.
1:08:38
And for this trip, the budget proposal called for a 24% cut to
1:08:44
NASA May of 2025. That's incredible.
1:08:48
Why would you cut 24% of NASA's budget?
1:08:50
The most beloved part? Of our government.
1:08:54
It doesn't make any sense, especially with the return on
1:08:57
investment that NASA gets for every dollar.
1:08:59
You get about 9 or $10 back for every dollar you invest in NASA,
1:09:03
so I don't see why you would cut that much funding.
1:09:06
That was the largest single year reduction in agency history,
1:09:10
including ending SLS in Orion after Artemis 3 and cancelling
1:09:13
the Lunar Gateway. That's what Trump.
1:09:16
Wanted to do. Senator Ted Cruz LED a
1:09:19
congressional rescue, adding $10 billion for NASA to the One Big
1:09:23
Beautiful Bill Act signed in July 4th of 2025.
1:09:27
This secured $4.1 billion for SLS rockets supporting Artemis 4
1:09:31
and five 2.6 billion for Gateway and funding to continue ISS
1:09:36
operations through 2025. Ted Cruz.
1:09:41
Good. On you we.
1:09:43
Need NASA here now, Cruz said the moon mission must happen at
1:09:48
president trump's term or else China will beat us there and
1:09:50
build the first moon base now if China does build the first moon
1:09:54
base, why are they doing it is it because they're.
1:09:58
The big bad enemy or. Is it because they just want to
1:10:00
explore and they have great technology?
1:10:03
If you ask them, they'll say it's for science.
1:10:06
That's what we said too. Remember that when we went to
1:10:08
the moon the first time and then later we realized that the
1:10:13
government wasn't telling us the truth, and it was all because we
1:10:16
wanted to be stronger than Russia.
1:10:18
So I just want to open your eyes to everything.
1:10:21
I'm very positive about this, and I think it's great.
1:10:23
But there's always different causes, right?
1:10:26
And of course, we want to go back to the moon and settle a
1:10:29
base because if China builds the first moon base instead of just
1:10:34
saying like, hey China, that's great, we want to help you.
1:10:38
Or hey China, can we work together in some way?
1:10:40
Let's do this together, but instead make it into a
1:10:45
competition. But if it, if that's what it
1:10:48
takes to get people back to the moon and build a base, of
1:10:51
course, like I'm all for that. I just don't want anybody to get
1:10:54
hurt. That's it.
1:10:56
Now there's going to be lunar landing Artemis 3.
1:11:00
So if Artemis 2 lands as a prerequisite to Artemis 3 and
1:11:06
they think that's. Going to happen in.
1:11:07
Mid 2027, but that's not going to happen and never happens on
1:11:11
time. So more than likely 2029, maybe
1:11:13
20-30, they're going to have to go.
1:11:16
Over all of. The data that Artemis 2
1:11:21
gathered. And also.
1:11:23
SpaceX. Isn't even close.
1:11:25
To landing a Starship on the moon yet they haven't even
1:11:28
refueled in orbit. So mid. 2027.
1:11:32
Seems like a stretch, right? It'll be the first crude landing
1:11:36
since 1972. And if SpaceX completes
1:11:40
development of the HLS. So back in October 2025, Sean
1:11:45
Duffy, who is the acting NASA chief, said, I love SpaceX.
1:11:49
It's an amazing company. The problem is they're behind.
1:11:52
He called him out. He called out Elon Musk, Sean
1:11:54
Duffy, that Elon went on a tirade.
1:11:57
They updated their website to show that there's other ways
1:11:59
that they could do the HLS that I don't know why they didn't do
1:12:03
that to begin with. Why?
1:12:06
Didn't they just do the easier? Way in the faster way first but
1:12:10
instead after Sean Duffy called them out they had a meeting and
1:12:15
put out a bunch of renders of the Starship and they basically
1:12:20
said hey we're going to get this done so they want to build
1:12:23
confidence with their investors as well.
1:12:25
The people that are investing in SpaceX, even though they are
1:12:27
private investors, they still need those investors money in
1:12:31
order to build Starlink and build Starship.
1:12:35
And SpaceX has completed 49 of its required milestones for
1:12:38
Artemis lunar Lander contract, but yet has not demonstrated
1:12:43
critical capabilities including orbital refueling.
1:12:46
That's approximately 15 to 20 tanker flights needed to fuel
1:12:51
Starship for lunar operations, 15 to 20 tankers.
1:12:56
You have to do that with an exit about a week.
1:12:58
You have to fly 20 rockets in a week in order for these.
1:13:04
That's what Elon has said before.
1:13:06
They can do it in seven days. Within seven days, they can fly
1:13:08
all these tankers in free fuel. Now.
1:13:11
An internal NASA review established February 2028 as the
1:13:16
70% confidence baseline for a Starship HLS readiness,
1:13:20
suggesting the mid 2027 target carries significant risk.
1:13:24
NASA open bidding for additional moon landing contracts because
1:13:27
of this. And that happened in October
1:13:30
2025 as a hedge. So Blue Origin, if Artemis is
1:13:35
not working out well for Starship, Blue Origin is going
1:13:38
to swoop in and get that contract.
1:13:43
Now there is Artemis. 4, which is going to happen in late 2028,
1:13:47
which will be the first docking of Lunar Gateway and it'll
1:13:50
require a new mobile launcher. So that might we're going to
1:13:54
push that back to 2032. Artemis 5 we're going to push
1:13:57
back to 2034, which includes ESA's E spirit module in
1:14:02
Canada's Canadarm 3 and then Artemis 6 who knows when it's
1:14:06
going to happen but Gateway crew in science airlock integration.
1:14:09
So instead of having just an Orion capsule that gets to moon
1:14:14
orbit, docks with a Starship, Starship goes to.
1:14:18
The Lunar. Surface and they're going to
1:14:21
have the Gateway there too. And NASA says this, but I don't
1:14:25
know if it's going to happen after 2020, after 2031.
1:14:31
Annual lunar landings plan and I'm.
1:14:32
Not being a heater, I'm just being a realistic here Post 2030
1:14:35
because it's politics, right? And if they decide to pull the
1:14:38
funding because it's not bringing any money in.
1:14:42
The Space Launch System is not only a rocket, it does provide
1:14:46
thousands of people high paying jobs throughout the United
1:14:50
States of America. Engineers, scientists, all the
1:14:55
people that support this program, they get paid a lot of
1:14:59
money and therefore they pump that money back into the
1:15:02
economy. And then America makes money
1:15:05
from those people, so they need. SLS and they need to keep.
1:15:08
This going but post 2031 who even knows if it's going to be
1:15:11
around. So there are some milestones
1:15:14
left before humans go back to space the target.
1:15:18
Date for the rollout to. Launchpad 39-B will be January
1:15:21
17th, 2026. There's going to be a wet dress
1:15:24
rehearsal in late January 2026. There's going to be a flight
1:15:29
readiness review after the wet dress rehearsal.
1:15:33
So sometime early February 1st maybe maybe late January 25th or
1:15:40
something. Who knows when the wet dress
1:15:42
rehearsal is going to be completed.
1:15:44
Launch window opens February 6th, 2026.
1:15:47
The wet dress rehearsal will load over 730,000 gallons of
1:15:51
liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen into the rocket.
1:15:55
That's a process that proved challenging during Artemis 1
1:15:58
preparations when there were a ton of hydrogen leaks, which
1:16:02
caused repeated delays. NASA will conduct multiple
1:16:05
countdown rehearsals to T 30 seconds without the crew aboard
1:16:09
and Acting Associate Administrator Lori Glaze assess
1:16:13
the current readiness said right now we could still make the
1:16:16
February launch. We've got to have a lot of
1:16:19
things go smoothly and go well, but it's still feasible.
1:16:27
The NHTSA just. Handed Tesla five more weeks to
1:16:30
explain why its cars keep running red lights.
1:16:32
The federal safety agency extended Tesla's deadline to
1:16:35
respond to any investigation into full self driving traffic
1:16:38
violations until February 23rd, giving the company time to
1:16:43
manually review 8313 records of potential incidents.
1:16:48
And Tesla says it can only process about 300 records per
1:16:51
day, and the original January 19th deadline landed right in
1:16:55
the middle of a holiday. But this extension arrives at a
1:16:58
precarious moment for the automaker.
1:17:00
Elon Musk announced 2 days ago that Tesla will stop selling FSD
1:17:04
as a one time purchase after February 14th, forcing all new
1:17:08
customers between $99 monthly subscription.
1:17:11
Now, is that date a coincidence, or is Tesla quietly
1:17:14
repositioning its most controversial product before
1:17:18
regulators close in? The February 14th deadline is
1:17:21
the same day California's DMV gave Tesla to fix its misleading
1:17:26
Autopilot marketing or face a 30 day sales suspension.
1:17:30
We're going to go and breakdown what NHTSA is actually
1:17:33
investigating, why Tesla is drowning in regulatory requests,
1:17:37
and how the subscription pivot might be a legal hedge as much
1:17:41
as a business strategy. We will also look at why only
1:17:45
12% of Tesla owners have ever paid for FSD, what that means
1:17:49
for Musk's robotaxi, and we'll get right into that right after
1:17:53
this very short break. Now, the federal investigation
1:17:57
into FSD traffic violations now covers 2.9 million Tesla
1:18:02
vehicles, essentially every car equipped with a system now.
1:18:05
NHTSA opened the probe in October after collecting dozens
1:18:09
of reports of Teslas running red lights, driving in the wrong
1:18:12
direction, and making illegal lane changes while FSD was
1:18:15
engaged. The agency has since logged 62
1:18:18
customer complaints, 14 Tesla submitted reports and four media
1:18:23
accounts of incidents. Some drivers reported their cars
1:18:25
gave no warning before behaving erratically.
1:18:30
Tesla's. Defense has remained.
1:18:31
Consistent. They say that the company argues
1:18:34
it has repeatedly told drivers the system cannot drive cars by
1:18:38
themselves. Whoever sits behind the wheel
1:18:41
must remain attentive and ready to intervene at all times.
1:18:45
Now, that language appears in Tesla's documentation and owner
1:18:47
manuals, and the company classifieds FSD as an SAE Level
1:18:51
2 partial automation system, meaning the driver retains full
1:18:56
responsibility for operating the vehicle and complying with
1:18:59
traffic laws at all times. But let's point out that the
1:19:04
product name is Full Self Driving.
1:19:06
Calling something Full Self Driving when it requires
1:19:08
constant human supervision creates a perception gap that
1:19:12
regulators find increasingly problematic.
1:19:14
California's DMV ruled last month that Tesla's marketing was
1:19:18
deceptive under state law, concluding that reasonable
1:19:21
consumers can mistakenly believe that cars can operate all by
1:19:24
themselves without human oversight.
1:19:26
Administrative Judge Juliet Cox found that Tesla's promotional
1:19:30
language implied levels of autonomous capabilities the cars
1:19:34
simply cannot do, and they cannot possess this.
1:19:39
Now the investigation. Centers on.
1:19:40
Specific failure modes that put drivers and other road users at
1:19:44
risk. NHTSA.
1:19:46
Documents. Describe Tesla's entering turn
1:19:49
only lanes and proceeding straight through intersections
1:19:52
in violation of lane markings. Others executed turns from
1:19:57
through lanes despite clear directional signals and peanut
1:20:00
arrows. Some vehicles changed lanes
1:20:02
directly into opposing traffic with minimal notice to drivers,
1:20:05
creating immediate collision hazards.
1:20:08
One pattern emerged from a cluster of complaints in Joppa,
1:20:10
MD, where multiple drivers reported the same intersection
1:20:14
triggered erratic behavior. Tesla claims it has since
1:20:17
addressed the issue at that specific location, but the
1:20:20
geographic spread of other incidents suggests systemic
1:20:23
problems rather than isolated bugs.
1:20:26
The agency is particularly interested in whether FSD
1:20:30
provides adequate warnings before these maneuvers, and many
1:20:33
incident reports suggest the system acted without alerting
1:20:35
the driver to its intended behavior, leaving no time for
1:20:39
the driver to intervene. Tesla.
1:20:42
Requested the extension on. January 12th.
1:20:44
Explaining that the original deadline gave it barely over a
1:20:47
month to compile comprehensive data, the company told
1:20:50
regulators that nearly two weeks of that window overlapped with
1:20:54
major holidays and keyword searches for traffic violations
1:20:57
return massive volumes of unrelated records.
1:21:00
Manually sorting through 8313 remaining items at 300 per day
1:21:06
requires approximately 28 additional days.
1:21:10
NHTSA granted the full 5 weeks test that requested.
1:21:14
Now I've been digging through the analytics of the show and
1:21:16
noticed about 37 to 38% of you are following the channel.
1:21:20
I love you. Thank you so much for that and
1:21:23
I'm forever grateful for you. You have helped us get to where
1:21:25
we are, but we need to get to the next level.
1:21:27
We need to level up. And the other 63% of you that
1:21:31
have not hit the follow or subscribe button, you can help
1:21:33
us do that. All you need to do is hit the
1:21:36
follower subscribe button. Takes a second.
1:21:38
I've been an independent journalist for the last six
1:21:40
years covering SpaceX, Elon Musk, Tesla, Boring Company,
1:21:44
XXAI, everything Elon has been doing and everything in his
1:21:47
perimeter. And I'm going to continue doing
1:21:50
this for the next 10 years. And all I ask from you is one
1:21:54
second of your time to hit the follower subscribe button.
1:21:57
You have no idea how much that helps us.
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It is such a big deal. And also if you have the
1:22:03
opportunity, leave us a five star review because that would
1:22:07
be amazing, especially the people that have been here for a
1:22:09
while. If all of you left us a five
1:22:11
star review, we would be through the moon right through it.
1:22:15
And I'm totally, extremely grateful for all of you here and
1:22:20
I am blessed to have you in this community.
1:22:22
So thank you so much for being part of this this.
1:22:26
SFSD. Probe is just one of three major
1:22:28
NHTSA investigations Tesla is juggling juggling right now.
1:22:32
The company also faces probes into delayed crash reporting and
1:22:36
inoperative door handles on Model 3 vehicles.
1:22:39
Tesla told regulators that responding to three large
1:22:41
information requests in short order is unduly burdensome and
1:22:46
affects the quality of responses.
1:22:48
And the door handle investigation alone covers
1:22:51
roughly 179,000 vehicles from 2022.
1:22:56
Now, a separate probe in FS DS ability to handle reduced
1:22:59
visibility conditions like fog and sun glare has been running
1:23:02
since October 2024. And after multiple crashes,
1:23:06
including one fatality that's right on the books and the
1:23:10
subscription announcement that's a new one, that's great.
1:23:12
January 14th caught everybody off guard.
1:23:15
Didn't expect this, but there's a pattern here.
1:23:18
California's DMV gave Tesla 60 days to fix its deceptive
1:23:22
marketing starting December 16th. 60 days.
1:23:26
Later falls on. February 14th, Valentine's Day,
1:23:30
the exact date the Elon Musk chose to end one time FSD
1:23:34
purchases. Moving to subscription only
1:23:36
detaches Tesla from the promise that buyers were purchasing a
1:23:40
future proof autonomous capability subscription
1:23:44
customers. Pay for what?
1:23:45
FSD delivers today a Level 2 driving assistance assistance
1:23:49
system, nothing more. That distinction matters in
1:23:53
courtrooms and regulatory hearings where Tesla faces
1:23:56
accusations of overselling a product that has never matched
1:24:00
its name. Now the one time purchase option
1:24:03
created legal exposure. Tesla no longer wants to carry.
1:24:06
They don't want that burden. And for years, Tesla told buyers
1:24:11
Elon Musk told buyers that their cars would eventually become
1:24:13
robotaxis worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that
1:24:16
FSD prices would keep rising as the software improved.
1:24:20
Neither prediction is true at all.
1:24:23
You can't use. Your car as a robotaxi.
1:24:24
Right now, you might not be able to do for the next 5 years if
1:24:27
possible. FSD peaked at $15,000 in late
1:24:30
2022, before Tesla cut its price to 8000.
1:24:34
In 2024, the subscription dropped from 199 to $99 monthly
1:24:39
during the same period. And at current pricing, buying
1:24:42
FSD outright only made sense if you believed in the autonomy
1:24:45
promise, since it would take nearly seven years of $99
1:24:49
monthly payments to break even at 8 grand, some people would
1:24:53
prefer the $99, right? Most car buyers do not keep
1:24:57
their vehicles that long. The promise faces existential
1:25:00
pressure from straight regulators too, federal
1:25:03
investigators and class action lawyers who alleged Tesla
1:25:06
deceived them after the technology's capabilities were
1:25:09
not realized after years. Now Musk also.
1:25:13
Admitted on a. Recent earnings called the
1:25:14
hardware 3 vehicles. A significant portion of its
1:25:17
existing fleet cannot achieve full autonomy as originally
1:25:21
promised. Those owners were told their
1:25:23
cars had all the hardware needed to become full self driving with
1:25:27
future software updates. Now, Tesla says some will need
1:25:30
retrofits, though no detailed upgrade plans have been
1:25:34
announced. Moving to subscription only
1:25:36
eliminates ongoing commitments to driver and delivery
1:25:39
capabilities that the company may never achieve on legacy
1:25:43
hardware. New subscription customers get
1:25:46
what FSD delivers today without any implied promise about the
1:25:50
future and tomorrow, and Tesla's core business provides the
1:25:54
financial context for why FSD performance carries such weight.
1:25:58
The company delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, down
1:26:02
9% for the prior year. Chinese rival BYDS sold 2.26
1:26:07
million EVs during the same period, claiming the title Tesla
1:26:10
helped for years. CFO of Tesla disclosed in
1:26:14
October that only about 12% of Tesla fleets has paid for FSD
1:26:19
boasting that take rate became a key milestone in Musk's new $1
1:26:24
trillion compensation package, which requires 10 million active
1:26:28
FSD subscriptions before 2035 for his stock awards to fully
1:26:32
vest. Lower upfront costs through
1:26:34
subscription only access could theoretically Dr. adoption,
1:26:37
though the regulatory scrutiny may offset any marketing
1:26:40
benefits. Waymo continues pulling ahead in
1:26:44
the robotaxi race. Tesla once seemed destined to
1:26:47
dominate Alpha's autonomous vehicle division now completes
1:26:51
over 450,000 paid rides per week across Austin, San Francisco,
1:26:56
Phoenix, Atlanta and LA Expansion into London and Tokyo
1:27:00
is planned for 2026. And now Tesla launched
1:27:03
supervised robo taxi testing in Austin last year and offers ride
1:27:06
hailing with human drivers in San Francisco.
1:27:09
But the company still lacks the permits required to test or
1:27:11
operate autonomous vehicles without a safety driver.
1:27:14
In California, the state where Tesla builds half a million cars
1:27:17
annually, is the same state threatening to suspend its sales
1:27:20
license over marketing language. The NHTSA will likely seek
1:27:24
another extension request from Tesla after the February 23
1:27:28
deadline passes. The company has already
1:27:30
signalled it will ask for more time to provide detailed
1:27:33
information about each complaint, including software
1:27:35
versions, driver alerts and crash outcomes.
1:27:38
And the agency wants timelines for every incident starting 30
1:27:41
seconds before the initial violation and ending with a
1:27:44
final violation, driver disengagement or crash.
1:27:48
That level of granularity across thousands of records will take
1:27:51
months to compile, according to Tesla.
1:27:54
But they do have access to XAI, so that could be a thing they
1:27:58
could use to speed up this process.
1:28:00
The investigation could easily stretch through 2026 while Tesla
1:28:04
simultaneously fights California's marketing
1:28:07
requirements and prepares for its earnings report next week.
1:28:13
Ford's F-150 Lightning. Outsold the Tesla Cyber truck in
1:28:17
2025, and Ford still killed the program because it wasn't
1:28:20
selling enough. The Tesla stainless steel truck
1:28:24
moved roughly 21,500 units globally last year, while the
1:28:28
Lightning, a truck Ford publicly retired in December, delivered
1:28:32
approximately 27,300 units in the US alone.
1:28:36
Now you have a discounted vehicle outpacing an actively
1:28:39
marketed 1. And that raises a question most
1:28:42
Tesla bulls don't want to answer.
1:28:44
If Ford abandoned its EV truck at 27,000 units, what does that
1:28:50
mean for a cyber truck stuck at 21,500?
1:28:54
Now we're going to break down the actual sales numbers Tesla
1:28:56
doesn't want you to see. Explain why SpaceX buying over
1:28:59
1000 cyber trucks still couldn't stop the bleeding, and look at
1:29:03
what options Elon Musk has left. The data here paints a picture
1:29:07
of a vehicle program running at roughly 10% of its intended
1:29:11
production capacity, and we'll get right into that after this
1:29:15
very short break. Now the cyber truck.
1:29:18
Is now producing. At a fraction of what Tesla
1:29:20
planned. And the company is doing
1:29:22
everything it can to hide the numbers Tesla bundles.
1:29:25
It sails into two broad categories, Model 3 and Y, and
1:29:29
other models. The second bucket includes the
1:29:31
Model S, Model X, Cybertruck, and Tesla Semi, which makes
1:29:35
isolating Cybertruck performance in exercise in reverse
1:29:38
engineering. Model S and Model X have held
1:29:41
relatively stable at low volume, hovering around 5000 to 6000
1:29:46
units combined per quarter globally.
1:29:49
And if we allocate A generous 6000 units for S&X in quarter
1:29:53
4/20/25, that leaves roughly 5600 units for the Cybertruck
1:29:58
and Semi combined. The Semi remains in pilot
1:30:01
production with negligible volume, So we're looking at
1:30:04
about 5500 cyber trucks for the entire quarter.
1:30:08
Now that number should alarm anyone who followed Musk's
1:30:11
original production promises for the vehicle in Tesla Confirm.
1:30:15
In July 20. 25 This Cyber Truck sales had dropped to around 5000
1:30:20
units in quarter 2, and the recovery never materialized.
1:30:24
The company cut prices, introduced a cheaper trim, and
1:30:27
sales still cratered nearly 50% year over years.
1:30:31
And for context, the original Cyber Truck reveal in 2019
1:30:35
promised 250,000 units per year at full production.
1:30:40
The current run rate suggests annual output closer to a measly
1:30:45
22,000 units. That's roughly 10%, less than
1:30:49
10% of stated capacity figure that would trigger program
1:30:53
cancellation at any other automaker.
1:30:56
Now, Ford provides a useful comparison point here.
1:30:59
The F-150 Lightning launched A genuine enthusiasm and solid
1:31:03
early sales, but Ford faced its own production challenges,
1:31:07
battery cost overruns, and shifting consumer demand.
1:31:10
By late 2025, Ford announced it was ending Lightning production
1:31:15
to pivot toward extended range EVs.
1:31:18
The Lightning delivered about 27,300 units in the US for 2025,
1:31:23
down 18% year over year as the company wound down the program
1:31:28
and Ford looked at those numbers and decided the truck wasn't
1:31:31
viable long term. Tesla is looking at worst
1:31:34
numbers. I'm calling it a success now.
1:31:37
I've been digging through the analytics of the show and
1:31:39
noticed that 37% of you are following the channel for you.
1:31:44
I'm forever grateful and you are part of our success here at the
1:31:48
show. The other 63% of you haven't hit
1:31:50
the follower subscribe button. There's a few reasons for that.
1:31:54
You may have listened to a few episodes and just forgot to hit
1:31:56
the button. And that's cool.
1:31:57
I do that all the time. So please, if you can hit the
1:32:01
follower or like button. And I've been an independent
1:32:03
journalist covering SpaceX, Elon Musk, Space Flight and tech for
1:32:08
the six years. And I spent a year at Starbase
1:32:12
Texas, on the ground at SpaceX, and I'm going to continue for
1:32:17
the next 10 years. All I ask from you is one second
1:32:21
of your time to hit the follow or subscribe button on whatever
1:32:24
platform you're watching on right now.
1:32:27
I'm extremely grateful and blessed to have you in this
1:32:29
community. You're part of this now.
1:32:31
So thank you so much for joining us.
1:32:34
Now let's get. Back into this Tesla stuff,
1:32:37
it's. Crazy.
1:32:39
Tesla released a cheaper stripped down cyber truck
1:32:42
variant to boost sales. The company cancelled it months
1:32:45
later because it wasn't selling. Musk then had SpaceX purchase
1:32:50
over 1000 cyber trucks in quarter 4 of 2025.
1:32:54
Now that single purchase accounted for roughly 20% of
1:32:57
Tesla's quarterly cyber truck sales.
1:32:59
His own company he bought. He basically bought his own
1:33:02
cyber trucks. Even with his own company
1:33:04
propping up the numbers, cyber trucks sales still declined more
1:33:08
than 50% year over year. SpaceX cannot keep buying trucks
1:33:12
to pad Tesla's quarterly reports, and eventually the
1:33:17
financial engineering runs out of runway.
1:33:19
Now the 4680 battery cells deserve scrutiny here as well.
1:33:23
Tesla built the cyber truck around these proprietary cells,
1:33:26
betting that in house battery production would reduce costs
1:33:29
and improve performance. The opposite happened in 4680.
1:33:33
Cells contributed. To higher vehicle prices than
1:33:36
originally announced and delivered shorter range than the
1:33:39
2019 revealed promise. A cyber truck that was supposed
1:33:42
to start at around 40,000 now starts well above that in the
1:33:46
range figures fell short of early marketing 50,060 thousand
1:33:51
for some of those. And those broken promises eroded
1:33:54
trust with people who would love to buy a Tesla truck.
1:34:00
They needed to convert those people and they just didn't do
1:34:03
it. The price was too high.
1:34:05
And also Elon Musk, his public persona is another viable factor
1:34:10
in this equation. Brand perception matters.
1:34:13
And when it comes to automotive consumers, Musk's political
1:34:17
activities over the past two years have alienated a
1:34:20
significant portion of potential buyers.
1:34:22
But there's been surveys out there, and I'm not saying that
1:34:24
the perfect, but they consistently show that CEO
1:34:28
behavior ranks among the top reasons consumers avoid Tesla.
1:34:33
The company has no marketing department to counteract
1:34:35
negative press, no dealer network to smooth over concerns,
1:34:39
and no PR team to manage Elon Musk's controversies.
1:34:43
Every Musk tweet becomes the de facto voice of the company, no
1:34:46
matter what he says. It reflects on Tesla and all of
1:34:50
his other companies. And for a vehicle that already
1:34:52
struggled with polarizing design and it's hot, it's metal, and
1:34:56
it's sharp, adding a polarizing spokesperson, Elon Musk, created
1:35:02
compounding headwinds for the vehicle.
1:35:06
Now the path narrows with each quarter at Tesla.
1:35:09
Musk previously said Tesla would pivot to more traditional truck
1:35:14
design of the cyber truck failed.
1:35:15
But that pivot hasn't happened. There's no talk about it.
1:35:19
Acknowledging failure would require Musk to admit the design
1:35:22
was completely wrong. And it's management style
1:35:25
doesn't accommodate that kind of public reversal.
1:35:29
The Cyber Cab and other projects continue to absorb engineering
1:35:32
resources while the Cyber Truck line sits underutilized.
1:35:37
Most automakers would have written off this program by now,
1:35:39
absorb the loss and redirected capital toward viable products.
1:35:43
Tesla appeared committed to running out the clock.
1:35:46
Instead, Ford has officially killed the Lightning at 27,300
1:35:52
annual units. Tesla is celebrating the Cyber
1:35:56
Truck at 21,500 units. One company recognized when a
1:36:01
product wasn't working, it just killed it, moved on, pivoted.
1:36:04
The other company keeps buying its own inventory through the
1:36:07
shell game with SpaceX transactions from other
1:36:11
companies and they call it growth.
1:36:13
But that's not how it is. They needed to appease the
1:36:16
people that were buying the stock.
1:36:19
They needed those extra sales so it didn't look like it was a
1:36:21
horror show of only 4000 units sale sold in the last quarter.
1:36:26
So Cyber Truck program now operates at about 10% or less
1:36:30
capacity prices remain higher than promised, range fell short
1:36:34
of announcements and the cheaper variant got cancelled.
1:36:39
So unless something changes at Tesla, they may never do another
1:36:46
cyber truck again. Elon Musk says Tesla.
1:36:52
Will stop selling Full Self Driving as a one time purchase
1:36:56
and move it to a monthly subscription.
1:36:59
Today we're going to unpack what a subscription only FSD means
1:37:02
for drivers, how it could change Tesla's business model, and
1:37:07
where. This leaves anyone who already
1:37:09
paid for Full Self Driving before now.
1:37:12
The current numbers are the subscription for $99.00 per
1:37:17
month and the one time option is $8000 but the offer.
1:37:24
Ends. After Valentine's Day, now does
1:37:28
this shift finally solve the long running frustration over
1:37:30
FSD pricing value? The tease is very simple from
1:37:36
Tesla. This pricing change lines up
1:37:38
with a subscription target embedded in Musk's pay plan.
1:37:41
We'll also talk about how a lower upfront cost could change
1:37:44
adoption, usage and data collection for Tesla, and we'll
1:37:47
get right into that after this very short break Tesla.
1:37:53
Is moving full self driving? To subscription only must share
1:37:57
the change on X and set the cut off after February 14th, making
1:38:01
the monthly plan the only way to get FSD going forward.
1:38:05
This choice eliminates the $8000 one time option that sits next
1:38:09
to the $99 monthly subscription on Tesla's website right now.
1:38:14
Musk's post leaves little room for doubt.
1:38:16
He said Tesla will stop selling FSD as an upfront purchase after
1:38:20
the February 14th deadline, and that FSD will be available only
1:38:25
as a monthly subscription after that point.
1:38:27
The decision arrives after years of price changes for the one
1:38:30
time option, including a 2022 peak of $15,000.
1:38:35
This sparked debate among owners about value expectations and
1:38:39
transfer rules. The subscription price anchors
1:38:42
the conversation at a lower entry point and a familiar
1:38:44
consumer model and the current pricing.
1:38:47
Gives us. An easy way to frame this math,
1:38:49
at $99.00 per month, a driver would need more than 80 months
1:38:54
to catch today's $8000 one time cost.
1:38:57
That is about 6 years and nine months.
1:39:00
Many owners cycle cars sooner than that, and even for long
1:39:04
term owners, the flexibility to cancel during months when they
1:39:07
do not need FSD will appeal to budget minded households.
1:39:11
The new model invites more trial, more seasonal use and
1:39:14
less buyer's remorse tied to a big upfront bet.
1:39:18
And the change also lands at a strategic moment for Tesla's
1:39:21
software. The company has pitched FSD as
1:39:23
software that improves the data and iteration, and a broader
1:39:27
subscriber base can create more real world miles for training
1:39:30
and validation. And a lower paywall can expand
1:39:33
the pool of drivers who use FSD during Rd.
1:39:35
Trips, commutes or fleet work which can feed the software loop
1:39:40
that Tesla depends on for progressing forward now.
1:39:44
This is a steady recurring revenue.
1:39:46
Stream that Wall Street understands, and it tightens the
1:39:49
link between product use and product improvement.
1:39:53
Now, FS DS price history offers context for why subscription
1:39:58
might be the cleanest way to reset expectations. $15,000 in
1:40:04
20. 22 and eventually settled though it people were mad that
1:40:07
they couldn't move their FSD from vehicle to vehicle owners
1:40:12
who bought at the higher price expected long term value that
1:40:15
kept rising with each software advance.
1:40:17
But moving to a subscription standardizes the value
1:40:20
proposition. Or on monthly utility, these
1:40:24
aren't. Just future promises.
1:40:25
Now it's what you get right now. Do you want it this month and is
1:40:29
it worth $99.00 for the routes you drive right now?
1:40:33
Will it make your life easier? Is that $99.00 per month going
1:40:36
to save you enough time to compensate you for that $99?
1:40:43
And Tesla's cut off timing. Is random.
1:40:46
It aligns, though, with targets and Musk's 2025 CEO Performance
1:40:50
Award, which includes A requirement for 10 million
1:40:52
active FSD subscriptions over the next decade.
1:40:56
The award also attaches other stretch targets from cumulative
1:41:00
vehicle production to robotaxis and even a market cap goal.
1:41:04
In short, success. In.
1:41:05
Subscriptions is now one lever in Musk's long term
1:41:08
compensation. The linkage adds a clear
1:41:11
incentive to streamline how FSD is sold, simplify the funnel and
1:41:15
push for a higher adoption. And already, if you've paid for
1:41:20
this FSD today, it'll. Sit outside this.
1:41:25
Change, at least in how the offer is currently framed.
1:41:29
The announcement speaks to stopping new one time sales
1:41:33
after February 14th, not clawing back anyone's existing purchase.
1:41:38
You still get it. And for shoppers weighing new
1:41:40
Tesla, the take away is direct. The decision point on paying
1:41:44
once versus paying monthly expires after the holiday.
1:41:48
Would you rather pay? 8. $1000 upfront or would you
1:41:53
rather? Pay $99.
1:41:54
A month. To me, the benefit of having it
1:41:58
as a $99 subscription is that it's obtainable from somebody
1:42:03
who doesn't have an extra basically $10,000 laying around
1:42:08
for software that isn't complete.
1:42:10
Let me know in the comments of your podcast platform what you
1:42:14
think of this. Do you think it's easier at
1:42:16
$99.00 a month or do you think 8012 thousand $15,000 upfront
1:42:21
for FSD, a not fully realized piece of software?
1:42:26
You think that's better? And if you value perpetual
1:42:30
access, the final window for that purchase is short.
1:42:33
If you were on the fence, the subscription only feature
1:42:37
favours trying FSD for a month or two and deciding if you want
1:42:41
to sit around with this FSD rather than looking into just
1:42:45
spending 10 grand on it now. Speaking of.
1:42:49
Analytics. I've been digging through them
1:42:52
for the show and I noticed that 37% of you are following this
1:42:55
channel and for you I'm forever grateful I love you you're
1:42:59
amazing and you help me do what I do and the other 63% of you
1:43:03
haven't hit the follower subscribe button and I get it
1:43:05
sometimes you watch a show or you listen to a show for a while
1:43:10
you just forget to hit the subscribe button.
1:43:12
It actually really helps the channel so much if you hit the
1:43:15
sub button. And if we get enough subscribers
1:43:19
or followers on the show, we can do a lot more things.
1:43:24
We can have guests on the show. We can upgrade the quality of
1:43:26
the audio. I don't know if you've realized,
1:43:28
but I've upgraded the quality of the audio at the beginning of
1:43:31
the year because I keep getting subscribers.
1:43:34
And it's because of you that I could continue doing this.
1:43:37
And I've been an independent journalist covering SpaceX, Elon
1:43:41
Musk, Space Flight and technology for the last six
1:43:44
years. And I'll continue for the next
1:43:46
10 years. You have my promise and all I
1:43:48
ask from you is one second of your time for the next 10 years
1:43:52
of mine. You just have to hit the follow
1:43:53
or subscribe button on whatever platform you're on right now.
1:43:57
And if you want to go the extra distance, leave a five star
1:44:00
review for the show that will boost our signal and I'll be
1:44:03
able to upgrade even more Guests will have more news, better
1:44:08
news, all the stuff, right? So I'm extremely grateful for
1:44:13
you and I'm blessed to have you here in this community.
1:44:17
So thank you so much. Now people were saying they were
1:44:23
saving for the one time option and this may accelerate orders
1:44:29
before the cut off, right? So if somebody was saving $8000,
1:44:33
they were saving up for it. And like you know what, I don't
1:44:35
want to pay a subscription and but I do want to save that $8000
1:44:39
and I want to I just bought a new model Y and I just want to
1:44:44
not even worry about FSD subscription.
1:44:46
I'm just going to put my $8000 in but others.
1:44:50
Will accept the. Subscription as a trial and wait
1:44:52
for the next major software release to test again.
1:44:54
So maybe you get it for two or three months.
1:44:57
You drive around town, you take it on a road trip.
1:44:59
See how it works and the flexibility of turning FSD on
1:45:03
for a road trip then pausing it might be a good idea.
1:45:08
You spend $99.00 before your road trip.
1:45:11
You turn on FSD, you hit the road and everything's.
1:45:15
Taken care of for you. And that kind of usage pattern
1:45:19
might bring in people who never would have dropped several
1:45:22
thousand, almost $10,000 upfront.
1:45:24
There's no way a lot of people have an extra $10,000 and
1:45:29
Tesla's vehicle, I mean, the price range for people is
1:45:33
between 35,000 to 100 plus $1000 for a Tesla, right?
1:45:40
And if you're at the low end of that, you're like, OK, I got.
1:45:43
About 35,000. Dollars right?
1:45:45
I don't have an extra $10,000 for full self driving so maybe
1:45:49
this $99.00 a month thing could really work out.
1:45:52
I have an extra $99.00 a month, I just don't have $10,000 extra
1:45:57
now. There's also a second order
1:46:00
effect in how Tesla markets vehicles.
1:46:02
Sales advisors can pitch a lower total drive away price.
1:46:06
So since the sticker does not carry an extra $8000 add on for
1:46:11
FSD, buyers can leave the lot with standard Autopilot and add
1:46:15
FSD later when they want to, which helps test the close deals
1:46:20
without a long discussion of lifetime failure.
1:46:22
They can also sell you the plan right there.
1:46:25
You know you go to a Tesla showroom and they can tell you
1:46:28
how much things cost. If you're going to spend $8000
1:46:30
upfront, and this is before Valentine's Day, February 14th,
1:46:35
you only have about a month to do this.
1:46:38
Now the FSD becomes a post sale upsell, the test that can pursue
1:46:44
an e-mail in app prompts or free trials tied to holidays and
1:46:48
travel seasons. So what if they say subscription
1:46:52
is $99.00 a month? Hey, Valentine's Day is coming
1:46:55
up, pop. It up in the app hey?
1:46:58
You and your loved ones are going on a road trip.
1:47:00
Valentine's Day. Get FSD.
1:47:03
It's going to make your trip so much better.
1:47:06
Now streaming. Services do this already.
1:47:09
They pop up things all the time, you know, like, hey, do you want
1:47:11
to upgrade your service so you can have more people on your
1:47:13
plan? Or do you spend $15 per month,
1:47:17
15 to $20.00 per month for a streaming service that makes
1:47:20
your life more fun? But would you pay $99.00 for a
1:47:24
vehicle that can drive you wherever you want to go and
1:47:28
leave your mind open to think and to pursue other goals while
1:47:34
that's happening? You're basically in a taxi with
1:47:36
FSD the business. Context ties back.
1:47:40
To how Tesla wants investors to see the company.
1:47:42
Hardware carries very tight margins, and it swings with the
1:47:47
economy. Software subscriptions can
1:47:50
smooth that revenue. When people aren't buying
1:47:51
vehicles, The vehicles that they already have could be generating
1:47:55
revenue for Tesla every month. They could expand gross margins
1:47:59
and demonstrate user engagement. And if FSD adoption rises, Tesla
1:48:04
can report subscription numbers and growth rates every quarter,
1:48:07
which gives the market a clean handle on how software is
1:48:12
building the future for Tesla. And this is for the.
1:48:15
Long term goals of. Course for Elon, but also for
1:48:18
Tesla too, they want to make extra money so they can build
1:48:20
extra cool things so. This is a historic pain point.
1:48:25
For FSD $15,000 Back in the day, owners who sold or traded their
1:48:31
cars face questions about whether their value transferred
1:48:35
and if they sell their Model S with $15,000 FSD, where does the
1:48:41
FSD go? Does it go with the vehicle or
1:48:43
does it get turned off? Like those are all the questions
1:48:46
that people asked. But if you have a subscription,
1:48:49
it removes that friction by making software access transient
1:48:52
by default. If you have a Model 3 and then
1:48:56
you. Sell that model 3.
1:48:57
And you buy a Model S, then that subscription goes straight to
1:49:01
the Model S and you don't have to worry about it.
1:49:05
Customer only decides whether to pay for the next month, not
1:49:08
whether to protect a sunk cost across multiple vehicles.
1:49:11
So if you had to Model 3, you sold it Model S.
1:49:14
You would have to spend another $8000 to get FST in the past,
1:49:18
but not anymore. And the shift helps future proof
1:49:21
sales for Tesla as it iterates hardware, chips and sensors over
1:49:25
the next few years. A driver.
1:49:28
Can turn on FST. For a month of heavy highway
1:49:32
trips, cancel for a few months. If you're just going to run
1:49:35
around town or if you want to use it in town too, that's cool,
1:49:38
but. Then return.
1:49:41
When you're doing Rd. trips, again, people do that all the
1:49:45
time with streaming, so I do that all the time with streaming
1:49:47
software. Let me know in the comments if
1:49:48
you do that too. Sometimes I'll just turn off
1:49:51
Paramount Plus. I'm like, I don't have anything
1:49:53
to watch on that or Netflix, same thing or actually, you know
1:49:58
what Apple TV Plus, I always have something to watch.
1:50:01
I always watch foundation on that.
1:50:04
So if. And this is kind of like my
1:50:07
background. Show I just put foundation on
1:50:10
while I'm working so I think people will do that with this
1:50:15
too. I think what they're going to be
1:50:17
doing is Rd. trips yes, turn on FSD. 99 bucks, let's pay it
1:50:21
upfront. You know, we're going on a road
1:50:23
trip in March, maybe at the end of February, turn on FSD, get
1:50:28
used to it at the end of February and then March rolls
1:50:31
around. You already have FSD for another
1:50:33
month, you're good. And if.
1:50:37
You want to track the. Autonomy of Teslas remember the
1:50:42
capabilities today and the supervision is required.
1:50:45
The company continues to ship updates that improve behaviour
1:50:48
and use cases and reduce interventions, and owners still
1:50:53
must remain attentive. And also all of this will feed
1:50:59
data to Tesla for robo taxis and that is their big bet.
1:51:05
Subscriptions for FSD $99.00 a month will directly feed that
1:51:11
data to FSD in a robo taxis and when.
1:51:17
They take over. The robo taxi market, because
1:51:19
Waymo and them are going to be side by side.
1:51:21
It's going to be Lyft and Uber all over again.
1:51:24
And when they have. All this data from.
1:51:28
All these people running FSD, it's going to be such a.
1:51:33
Huge. Huge boost for Tesla over Waymo.
1:51:39
Quick recap here. Musk says Tesla will stop
1:51:42
selling FSD as a one time purchase after February 14th.
1:51:45
The only way to get it after that date is $99.00 per month
1:51:49
for subscription. The one time option is currently
1:51:52
$8000 which is down from 15 and the move is for the long term.
1:52:00
They need to get 10 million active FSD subscription in
1:52:04
Musk's compensation plan. So this.
1:52:07
Lowers the barrier to. Entry sales are super easy now.
1:52:11
You don't have to convince somebody to spend $10,000 and
1:52:15
Elon and Tesla get a buttload of data for self driving verbo
1:52:21
taxis. Just a warning before.
1:52:31
This episode starts there will be some adult type content, some
1:52:36
mature type content in this episode, so don't play it out
1:52:41
loud for what that's worth. And it's about XAI.
1:52:45
Ashley St. Clair sexualized images of her
1:52:50
swastikas, Nazi. It's a lot going on.
1:52:55
That's just your warning. And let's get into it though,
1:52:58
because it's interesting to see where AI is headed as far as
1:53:04
image manipulation goes. Ashley St.
1:53:07
Clair has sued XAI, alleging Grok Image Tool produced
1:53:12
sexualized images of her. Now this case is on Grok's
1:53:17
behavior on X and whether XAI can be held responsible for what
1:53:21
its product outputs. Now, the filing says the AI
1:53:25
produced images of Saint Clair in a string bikini covered with
1:53:28
swastikas. The event depicted her as a
1:53:31
child in a bikini. And is XAI legally responsible
1:53:37
for what users make Grok generate?
1:53:42
There's also a number you should hear.
1:53:44
A review said Grok Turned out roughly one non consensual image
1:53:48
per minute. And today we're going to.
1:53:51
Go through. What Sinclair filed, how X and
1:53:54
XAI responded, which governments moved against Grok, and what
1:53:59
could happen next for X and XAI and Grok.
1:54:04
And then we're going to talk about where the pressure points
1:54:07
are still for the platform and for the law and go right into
1:54:12
that right after this very short break.
1:54:16
Now Ashley Saint Claire. In this lawsuit targets Xai over
1:54:20
images Grok generated of her. She's the mother of one of Elon
1:54:25
Musk's children, and she says the product enabled harassment
1:54:28
that spilled across all of X the filing.
1:54:33
Tries to make. The maker of the EI directly
1:54:36
liable for what the users prompted it to do this.
1:54:40
The lawsuit describes explicit images, including one that put
1:54:44
her in a string bikini stamped with swastikas and another that
1:54:47
portrayed her as a child in a bikini.
1:54:51
Now that changes the. Stakes because the.
1:54:52
Images are both sexualized and in her account, weaponized with
1:54:57
hateful symbols. The filing also.
1:54:59
Notes the Saint Claire's. Jewish, which heightens the harm
1:55:02
described. Now think of the feed on X and
1:55:08
this photo keeps surfacing as you scroll through hundreds of
1:55:13
these. Photos were made.
1:55:14
There were different iterations from different people.
1:55:19
They took the original image and tweaked it and also used
1:55:22
original images of her to make these images.
1:55:26
Now her lawyer argues the product itself isn't reasonably
1:55:29
safe and says Grok enabled the abuse by creating and
1:55:32
distributing non consensual images that were then published
1:55:36
on X. It raises a core claim in
1:55:39
product liability terms. The tool as designed allowed
1:55:42
foreseeable harm. Now if a court up sepsis framing
1:55:48
get a direct path to damages for injuries tied to how the model
1:55:52
behaves for Ashley St. Clair.
1:55:56
Now let's just talk about deepfakes here for a second,
1:56:00
because we have to understand this term.
1:56:02
It means a synthetic image or video generated by AI that
1:56:07
convincingly looks real. The simple definition matters
1:56:12
because the harm that Sinclair alleges is tied to images that
1:56:17
appear real to just normal people to casual viewers
1:56:22
flipping through X. The filing says Sinclair asked
1:56:25
for removal of the images and filed reports.
1:56:28
She says she then received an e-mail stating there was no
1:56:31
violation in that much of the content stayed public on Grok's
1:56:34
account for over a week. That puts pressure on X's safety
1:56:38
systems because the claim isn't just about that the comment or
1:56:42
the content just appeared, but that it remained up and they did
1:56:45
nothing about it. The lawsuit also says X's
1:56:48
reporting structure is defective and calls Grok unreasonably
1:56:51
dangerous. As designed, that's adds a
1:56:55
design and process claim to the product liability theory.
1:57:00
And if this is all true, that argument makes future incidents
1:57:04
more likely, not less likely, which increases exposure.
1:57:08
And we're going. To talk about some.
1:57:10
Definition about guardrails here.
1:57:13
These are built in rules that try to stop an AI from producing
1:57:17
prohibited content. X, through a statement shared on
1:57:21
the platform, said that it implemented a technical measure
1:57:25
to stop the Grok account from editing images of real people in
1:57:28
revealing clothing, like bikinis.
1:57:31
Company also said the restriction applies to everyone,
1:57:34
including paid subscribers. That limits some obvious
1:57:37
prompts, but it doesn't answer broader questions about how new
1:57:40
workarounds get blocked. So what do we know right now
1:57:44
about this? I did an experiment last night
1:57:47
because I was researching a story and I was just wondering
1:57:51
what would happen if I typed into X, typed into grok and I
1:57:58
said make an image of Donald. Trump in a bikini?
1:58:04
Sure enough, 3 seconds later, Donald Trump, the President of
1:58:10
the United States, was in a very revealing bikini.
1:58:15
And I thought, that's horrible. That is disgusting.
1:58:18
Actually. I didn't want to see that.
1:58:20
And then I thought, well, maybe this guard rails up because Elon
1:58:24
Musk doesn't want people doing that to him.
1:58:28
So I did it for, of course, research sake.
1:58:31
I typed the same thing into Grok.
1:58:34
I said, make, make a image of Elon Musk in a bikini.
1:58:38
Sure enough, a few seconds later, there was an image of
1:58:42
Elon Musk in a bikini and his body had morphed and he's filled
1:58:46
out the bikini. Same thing with Donald Trump.
1:58:49
And it was disgusting. I just want to see if these
1:58:52
guardrails guardrails were actually up and they are not
1:58:56
these. Revealing images.
1:58:59
Are still allowed on X. So Ashley St.
1:59:02
Clair has a point. There are no guardrails even
1:59:06
now. And this is after X has actually
1:59:10
released a statement saying that this is not possible anymore.
1:59:15
So XS Safety Team instead of removes child abuse material and
1:59:20
non consensual nudity and reports offenders to law
1:59:23
enforcement when necessary. It opens a compliance lane for
1:59:26
the platform and if the rules are clear and enforced, the
1:59:28
company can point to an enforcement regime.
1:59:31
So the lawsuit, however, challenges both the speed and
1:59:36
effectiveness of these actions. In this case, it seems like
1:59:40
there are not many guardrails on X right now, but if there are
1:59:46
and they want to enforce them, they have the ability to do so.
1:59:50
So they see Sam. We have to talk about SEE Sam,
1:59:53
too, because some people aren't familiar with this.
1:59:56
It's an acronym for Child Sexual Abuse Material, which is illegal
1:59:59
content involving minors. Platforms that encounter see Sam
2:00:03
must remove it and report it to authorities, which adds
2:00:06
substantial legal risk if they fail to do so.
2:00:09
Now, does that count with somebody making a prompt?
2:00:13
That's what regulators are going to work on.
2:00:15
Grok has reportedly blocked in Malaysia and Indonesia, and
2:00:19
authorities in the UK and in California, where the companies
2:00:22
based are investigating the company.
2:00:26
That changes the operational map because a blocked market in
2:00:30
active pros can force product changes, can slow down releases
2:00:35
or add more legal obligations to the company.
2:00:40
The venue is no. Longer just.
2:00:42
One U.S. court the content analysis firms review estimated
2:00:47
that Grok was generating roughly one non consensual image per
2:00:50
minute during a recent spike. That is it at scale, which is
2:00:56
exactly what worries regulated plaintiffs and advertisers.
2:00:59
And if that number holds, it makes the harm systemic rather
2:01:02
than anecdotal. It's that just one person.
2:01:04
It's the whole platform. It's just scummy people all over
2:01:07
the platform. You have a lawsuit, ongoing
2:01:10
investigations, and now you have a volume problem.
2:01:14
You have millions of these images out there all over the
2:01:17
platform. How does Elon Musk and his team
2:01:21
battle this Elon Musk? Posted that he was.
2:01:24
Not aware of naked underage images generated by Grok and
2:01:27
said the system only produces images when users ask it too.
2:01:32
He added that Grok refuses illegal requests and that
2:01:35
adversarial prompt hacking can trigger unexpected behavior.
2:01:38
That engineers. Then we'll patch that defense is
2:01:43
not that good, to be honest with you.
2:01:46
You should have these guardrails up way before anybody does
2:01:50
anything horrible like this any. Elon Musk is saying that Grok.
2:01:55
As a tool, obeys laws but sometimes encounters some edge
2:02:00
cases and therefore they can't really do anything about it
2:02:05
right. The filing says that Sinclair
2:02:09
sought both compensary and punitive damages.
2:02:12
Compensatory damages repay losses like emotional distress
2:02:16
or lost income, or punitive damages are meant to punish and
2:02:19
deter. It opens a big financial risk if
2:02:23
a court decides the conduct warrants punishment beyond
2:02:26
compensation, punitive damages. Are punishment.
2:02:30
Money, not reimbursement money. Now, the lawsuit also alleges
2:02:33
some X actions that go beyond removal decisions that says her
2:02:37
account was demonetized and that more images of her were
2:02:40
generated after she objected. Now if that's.
2:02:44
Accurate it. Strengthens the claim that the
2:02:46
system retaliated and that the company had noticed an ongoing
2:02:51
system of harm so. These claims cover.
2:02:54
Design moderation and alleged retaliation now and.
2:03:01
I've been digging. Through the analytics of this
2:03:03
show right now, and I've noticed that 37% of you are following
2:03:07
the show. And for you, I'm your biggest
2:03:09
fan. Thank you so much for following
2:03:11
the show. Hitting the subscribe button.
2:03:13
Now there's 63% of you that probably listen to the show
2:03:16
sometimes, and you might have listened to two or three
2:03:18
episodes and just forgot to hit the subscribe or follow button.
2:03:22
Or you're new here and you'd like the show and you want more
2:03:25
like this. You want more info about SpaceX,
2:03:28
NASA, Space Flight, Tesla, Elon Xai, Grok, all the stuff, right?
2:03:34
And I've been an independent journalist covering all of that,
2:03:37
Elon Musk, Space Flight, SpaceX, etcetera for 6 plus years.
2:03:40
I actually embedded myself for my YouTube channel at SpaceX, at
2:03:45
Boca Chica, Texas, at Starbase for about a year on the side of
2:03:48
the road because I love this so much.
2:03:50
So I've been doing this for like 6 years and I intend on
2:03:53
continuing doing it for the next 10.
2:03:56
And all I ask from you is one second of your time to hit the
2:04:01
follow or subscribe button because it helps us so much on
2:04:03
this platform. And with your support, we can
2:04:07
continue to grow and do better things.
2:04:09
So if you want to help us do better, please hit the subscribe
2:04:13
or follow button on the platform that you're listening or
2:04:15
watching on right now. I'm extremely grateful and
2:04:18
blessed to have you here in this community.
2:04:20
So thank you. Thank you.
2:04:23
Now let's go back into this filing.
2:04:25
It also asserts that Crock and X AI had explicit knowledge that
2:04:28
she did not consent because she told the company to remove the
2:04:31
images. This is a notice element now,
2:04:34
which in many cases is a threshold for liability if
2:04:38
harmful content stays up. If the company knew and failed
2:04:41
to act quickly, the plaintiff's argument gets stronger.
2:04:45
So Ashley St. Clair's argument gets much
2:04:48
stronger because she asked them to remove it and they did
2:04:52
nothing. So there's other contacts too.
2:04:55
Her family, Musk and Saint Clair have a son born in 2024 and are
2:04:59
estranged, and Musk has signaled he plans to seek custody now so
2:05:04
that doesn't. Determine.
2:05:06
Liability but it adds public attention and can shape how both
2:05:09
sides talk about the case, including the courts.
2:05:13
Meanwhile XS public statements keep returning to rules and
2:05:16
enforcement. The company says it removes high
2:05:18
priority violations and zeroes out non consensual sexual
2:05:22
content, and it provides points to reporting to law enforcement
2:05:26
for CSAM dispositions. X.
2:05:29
As proactive. But the lawsuit argues the
2:05:32
experience on the ground was slower and less effective.
2:05:35
So where does this go next? Though Musk had not publicly
2:05:38
responded to the lawsuit as of today, which suggests an initial
2:05:43
his replies may appear on the platform rather than informal
2:05:47
court filings, which usually speaks out publicly before the
2:05:49
court, but maybe not this time. But he has said that X is, and
2:05:55
XAI and Grok and X have all been working together to battle this.
2:06:00
But also it's up to the users to generate the content, so they
2:06:04
can't really police it. I guess that's what happens when
2:06:07
you destroy the safety team when you take over Twitter.
2:06:11
The investigation still continues in the UK and
2:06:15
California and that suggests this issue will evolve through
2:06:19
multiple venues, not just one courtroom and overseas as well.
2:06:24
So this. Is a filing that.
2:06:26
Accuses an AI product of generating sexualized, hateful
2:06:29
and in one case, childlike images of a real person, and it
2:06:33
connects those images to moderation and design choices on
2:06:36
a major platform. The company says it has safety
2:06:39
measures, it removed violations, and it avoids illegal outputs,
2:06:43
while the plaintiff says those steps did not work when it
2:06:46
mattered. The next phase will test whether
2:06:48
courts treat AI image engines like ordinary software or like
2:06:52
products with a duty to prevent specific harms for everybody.
2:07:02
Iran just pulled off something. Russia failed to do In Ukraine,
2:07:05
the regime deployed military grade jamming equipment that
2:07:08
crippled Starling satellite connections across the country,
2:07:11
driving packet loss as high as 80% in major cities like Tehran.
2:07:15
For an estimated 40,050 thousand Iranians who smuggled Starlink
2:07:18
terminals into the country, that satellite dish was their last
2:07:22
connection to the outside world during nationwide protests that
2:07:25
have now killed around 2000 people.
2:07:28
Starlink was supposed to be unjammable, the ultimate bypass
2:07:31
for authoritarian censorship, the technology that kept
2:07:34
Ukrainian forces connected when Russia tried to knock them
2:07:37
offline. So how did Iran succeed where
2:07:40
the Russian military could not? We're going to break down
2:07:43
exactly how Iran executed this digital siege by SpaceX.
2:07:46
Engineers are now racing to push software and firmware updates
2:07:50
and what Trump and Musk discussed in a phone call this
2:07:52
week after restoring access. We will also look at the bizarre
2:07:56
situation where the Ayatollah's ex account kept posting while 90
2:08:00
million Iranians went dark, and examine what this attack means
2:08:03
for Starling's role as a tool against censorship worldwide.
2:08:07
The technology behind Starling's vulnerability?
2:08:10
It's more straightforward than you might think.
2:08:12
We're right into that right after this very short break now.
2:08:17
Iran activated its Internet kill switch on January 8th, dropping
2:08:21
national connectivity to roughly 1% of normal levels within
2:08:25
hours. The blackout extended across all
2:08:28
31 provinces, affecting mobile networks, landlines, and even
2:08:32
domestic apps like ride hailing services Snap and TAPSI.
2:08:35
Banking systems went offline. International phone calls were
2:08:39
blocked net blocks. The Internet monitoring
2:08:41
organization confirmed the nationwide blackout and
2:08:44
described it as one of the most comprehensive shutdowns in
2:08:47
recent history. Starlink terminals, previously
2:08:49
the fail safe for activists and journalists during the 2022
2:08:53
protests, became the regime's next target.
2:08:57
Now the attack method is blunt but effective.
2:09:00
Starlink terminals require GPS signals to locate themselves and
2:09:03
establish connections with orbiting satellites.
2:09:05
Iranian authorities deployed a high power microwave jammers
2:09:09
that interfere with the radio frequency signals between ground
2:09:12
terminals and satellites. The Director of Digital Rights
2:09:16
and Security at the Miyam Group tracked the degradation in real
2:09:20
time, any observed packet loss starting at 30% as protesters
2:09:25
intensified, then climbing to more than 80% by 10:00 PM local
2:09:29
time on January 8th. Rashidi said he has monitored
2:09:33
Iranian Internet access for 20 years, has never seen anything
2:09:37
like this level for of interference.
2:09:39
The International Telecommunication Unit United
2:09:42
Nations agency previously called them an Iran to stop jamming
2:09:45
satellite signals, but there was requests have been ignored and
2:09:49
the technical approach differs fundamentally from a traditional
2:09:52
network shutdown. When I ran cuts terrestrial
2:09:55
Internet, it simply orders the companies there's two of them
2:09:58
that connect Iran to the global web to stop routing traffic.
2:10:02
Satellite jamming requires active electronic warfare
2:10:05
specialized equipment that cost significant money and requires
2:10:08
expertise to operate. Experts believe the equipment
2:10:11
came from Russia or China or was developed domestically using
2:10:14
knowledge gained from these partnerships or Iran has jammed
2:10:18
satellite television for decades using similar tech, but the
2:10:23
regime appears to have adapted those systems to low Earth
2:10:26
orbit. Constellations in the jamming
2:10:29
specifically targeted upload bandwidth, the exact capability
2:10:32
protesters need to send video evidence of the crackdown to
2:10:36
international media. Download speeds degraded as
2:10:40
well, but the upload throttling served a clear tactical purpose.
2:10:44
Now SpaceX face the same problem in Ukraine.
2:10:47
Starting in 2022, Russian forces attempted to jam Starling
2:10:50
terminals on the front lines, and SpaceX engineers pushed
2:10:53
software updates within hours that restored connectivity.
2:10:56
The company demonstrated an ability to adapt faster than
2:11:00
military jamming operations could respond.
2:11:02
Orion appears to have studied that playbook.
2:11:05
Nasnet, a group that helps Iranians access Starlink,
2:11:08
reported Saturday that Spacex's technical team pushed a software
2:11:11
update that partially restore the service.
2:11:14
The group called the interference an ongoing game of
2:11:17
cat and mouse and warned that conditions could change again or
2:11:20
even get worse. Now this back and forth doing
2:11:23
SpaceX software patches and Iranian jamming adjustments
2:11:27
could continue indefinitely with each side adapting to the others
2:11:30
countermeasures. Now I've been digging into the
2:11:34
analytics of the show and noticed that 37% of you are
2:11:37
following the channel. For you, I love you.
2:11:40
I'm forever grateful for you. The other 63% of you haven't hit
2:11:43
the follower subscribe button. And you could have watched a
2:11:45
couple episodes or listened to a couple podcasts and been like, I
2:11:48
don't like this, but I just haven't hit that.
2:11:50
You just haven't hit the subscribe button.
2:11:52
I do that all the time. I'll listen to a show for a week
2:11:55
straight and then eventually I'm like, oh, I just subscribed to
2:11:58
this. Maybe that's you.
2:12:00
But I've been an independent journalist for the last six to
2:12:04
seven, eight years, somewhere around there covering Elon Musk,
2:12:08
SpaceX, Space Flight technology. And I'm going to continue for
2:12:12
the next 10 years. And I could do that with one
2:12:16
thing. One second of your time.
2:12:18
I need your help. Hit the follow or subscribe
2:12:20
button. It helps out the show
2:12:22
tremendously. You don't even know how much it
2:12:24
helps. And wherever you are on whatever
2:12:26
platform, please leave a five star review if you have a
2:12:29
chance. I'm extremely grateful and
2:12:31
blessed to have you in this community and for you to be here
2:12:33
right now. So thank you so much for that.
2:12:39
Now, the Trump administration responded.
2:12:40
This week, with direct intervention, White House press
2:12:43
secretary Kamlan Livett confirmed Monday that President
2:12:47
Trump and Musk discussed restoring Starlink access in
2:12:51
Iran. Sources familiar with the matter
2:12:53
told reporters that Musk green latest engineers to work on a
2:12:56
solution over the weekend and expressed full support for
2:12:59
efforts restoring the connection.
2:13:01
And by Tuesday, SpaceX had waived subscription fees for
2:13:05
Iranian Starlink accounts, activating terminals that were
2:13:08
previously inactive and removing payment barriers for users who
2:13:11
already possessed equipment, the executive.
2:13:15
Director of the. Technology nonprofit Holistic
2:13:18
Resilience Ahmad Ahmadian confirmed the change directly
2:13:22
with Iranian users inside the country.
2:13:25
He described the process as plug and connect, assuming users can
2:13:29
find clear sky access. Despite the ongoing jamming,
2:13:32
interference in a legal stakes for Iranian users remain severe
2:13:36
despite their support from SpaceX.
2:13:38
After the 12 day war between Iran and Israel last June, the
2:13:42
regime passed an anti espionage law that criminalized Starling
2:13:45
possession. Personal use carries prison
2:13:49
terms up to two years. If authorities link a terminal
2:13:52
to espionage, the punishment can be death.
2:13:54
Security forces are now actively hunting Starling users by
2:13:57
tracking the high frequency signals admitted by the dishes
2:14:00
conducting raids on houses suspected of harboring the
2:14:03
equipment. Despite these risks, demand for
2:14:06
terminals surged over the summer war, with smuggling units at
2:14:11
significant premiums on the black market, and estimates put
2:14:14
the current number of subscribers at 40 to 50,000
2:14:16
users. Now, that's a small fraction of
2:14:19
Iran's 92 million population, but a critical lifeline for
2:14:22
getting information outside of the country.
2:14:24
You know the economic. Damage from the.
2:14:27
Broader Internet shutdown compounds the regime's
2:14:30
challenges. Now my analysis puts losses at
2:14:35
approximately 1.6, $1,000,000 per.
2:14:38
Hour. Which translates to potential
2:14:41
monthly damage exceeding a billion dollars if the blackout
2:14:44
continues at current levels. There's banks, there's
2:14:47
hospitals, pharmacies and businesses cannot function
2:14:50
without the Internet. Many shops did not open during
2:14:53
the shutdown because they could not process digital
2:14:55
transactions. The regime has demonstrated
2:14:58
willingness to absorb these losses to suppress information
2:15:02
flow, but the financial strain adds pressure to an economy
2:15:06
already buckling under international sanctions and
2:15:08
domestic mismanagement. Other protests began in late
2:15:12
December were precisely these economic conditions Shopkeepers
2:15:16
in Tehran's Grand Bazaar angry about the collapsing real
2:15:20
currency and rising prices that made basic goods unaffordable.
2:15:25
Human rights organizations report the death toll from the
2:15:27
crackdown has reached at least around 2000 confirmed deaths,
2:15:33
though groups like the US based Human Rights activist news
2:15:37
agency put the number a little bit higher.
2:15:39
Norwegian based Iran Human Rights warns the actual figure
2:15:43
could be much higher because the communication blackouts prevents
2:15:46
accuracy counting. Now Iranian Nobel laureate sure
2:15:50
ran about a warned of a potential massacre occurring
2:15:55
under the cover of a sweeping communications blackout.
2:15:58
The regime has created a whitelist system that allows
2:16:01
state online media to post while ordinary citizens remain cut
2:16:05
off. The Ayatollahs X account
2:16:08
continued publishing throughout the shutdown.
2:16:10
This is in stark illustration of how the regime maintains its own
2:16:14
communication channels while silencing every single normal
2:16:18
person. Now this is a critical
2:16:21
vulnerability in the assumption that satellite Internet can
2:16:23
defeat authoritarian censorship. Sterling's 9000 satellites and
2:16:27
shifting frequencies were supposed to make it impossible
2:16:30
to block. The system worked against
2:16:33
Russian jamming in Ukraine because SpaceX could adapt
2:16:35
faster than military bureaucracies.
2:16:38
Moran's approach suggests that a determined government with
2:16:41
access to sophisticated jamming equipment can degrade satellite
2:16:45
service enough to achieve its goals.
2:16:47
You do not need a global kill switch to cripple the network,
2:16:51
you just make it unstable, slow, and unreliable enough that it
2:16:54
barely even works. Sterling still functions in some
2:16:57
border areas in rural regions where jamming coverage is
2:17:00
thinner, but the major population centers where
2:17:03
protests concentrate have seen greater severe degradation, and
2:17:09
Iran. Prove the satellite.
2:17:10
Internet isn't invulnerable to state control.
2:17:13
Combination of terrestrial kill switches and military grade
2:17:16
jamming can degrade even systems designed to resist censorship.
2:17:20
SpaceX is pushing those countermeasures, though the
2:17:22
Trump administration is applying pressure and subscription fees
2:17:25
have been waived. This third major Internet
2:17:28
shutdown in Iran's recent history, following 2019 and
2:17:31
2022, shows the regime has learned from each previous
2:17:34
crisis and improved its digital suppression capabilities.
2:17:38
The outcome now depends on whether SpaceX engineers can win
2:17:41
the software battle against Iranian jammers, whether more
2:17:44
terminals can be smuggled into the country, and whether the
2:17:46
estimated 50,000 terminal owners can access enough signal to
2:17:50
document what happens next in the streets.
2:17:53
The protests continue into their third week in every video that
2:17:57
gets uploaded, even if it's very slow and if escapes, the
2:18:01
blackout arrives through a signal that Iran is actively
2:18:04
trying to kill and suppress. Elon Musk recently suggested.
2:18:09
That in 10 to 20 years, saving for retirement will not matter.
2:18:13
Arguing that advantages in AI, energy and robotics could usher
2:18:17
in an era of abundance that renders traditional nest eggs
2:18:21
obsolete. Comments prompted swift pushback
2:18:24
from retirement scholars and wealth managers.
2:18:28
He said the vision overlooks stubborn real world constraints
2:18:30
and household risks. Now Musk's case rests on a
2:18:34
sweeping productivity boom, smarter software, cheaper power
2:18:38
and ambitious automation driving down the cost of goods and
2:18:42
services from healthcare to education, until scarcity fades.
2:18:47
Even if parts of that prospect materialize, it does not follow
2:18:50
that workers can safely stop building financial reserves
2:18:53
today. Now, researchers at leading
2:18:56
retirement centers note that near term risks remain
2:18:59
unavoidable market volatility, job loss, illness and potential
2:19:05
changes to public benefits. Several emphasize that Social
2:19:08
Security faces funding challenges that, absent
2:19:11
legislative fixes, could increase the burden on personal
2:19:14
savings rather than eliminate it.
2:19:16
Advisers also stressed a basic point.
2:19:19
Future abundance is just an idea.
2:19:22
Rent, groceries and medical bills are always going to be
2:19:26
there now. Some critics focused on
2:19:28
distribution rather than technology.
2:19:30
They argue that whether abundance translates into broad
2:19:34
financial security depends on political choices.
2:19:36
Taxation transfers in the design of social insurance, which
2:19:40
rarely move in lockstep with engineering breakthroughs.
2:19:43
Innovation can arrive quickly. Equitable systems to share its
2:19:48
gains typically take decades now.
2:19:51
Others pointed to history. Past technology waves lifted
2:19:55
productivity without reliably shortening work weeks or even
2:19:58
distributing wealth. 1 researcher recalled that in the
2:20:02
1950s, some employees at a defense think tank skipped
2:20:06
pension contributions because nuclear war felt inevitable.
2:20:10
That never came. The retirement shortfalls
2:20:14
definitely did, though. Now for households deciding.
2:20:18
What to do now? The guidance from academics and
2:20:20
practitioners is consistent. Keep continuing to do what
2:20:26
you're doing. Contribute to workplace plans,
2:20:28
at least enough to capture an employer match.
2:20:31
Maintain an emergency fund so short term shocks don't force
2:20:34
withdrawals. Revisit portfolio risk.
2:20:37
As retirement approaches and assumes Social Security will
2:20:40
remain an important but incomplete pillar of support, it
2:20:44
might go away. And if a world of abundance
2:20:46
arrives on an aggressive timetable, accumulated savings
2:20:50
will become an extra margin of freedom in a cheaper economy, an
2:20:54
outcome few would regret. The broader debate remains
2:20:59
unresolved. Though technological optimism
2:21:03
imagines a future where scarcity recedes.
2:21:05
The personal finance discipline recognizes the bills come due on
2:21:10
schedule. Until policy catches up with the
2:21:13
promise of abundance, most households are just better off
2:21:17
to save. And you treat abundance as a
2:21:21
potential upside just in case. So you'll have this nest egg.
2:21:25
Let's say you save up to $100,000 and the abundance does
2:21:30
come. We've been promised abundance in
2:21:32
the past. Henry Ford for one.
2:21:35
Let's just talk about that. Henry Ford talked about how
2:21:38
everybody would be able to afford pretty much everything
2:21:42
because cars would make it cheaper to transport goods,
2:21:45
which it did of course. That's much easier than a.
2:21:49
Train or a plane, but the vehicles transporting, they
2:21:55
needed drivers. Those drivers needed jobs, so
2:21:59
those. Drivers got paid.
2:22:02
The abundance. Never came though.
2:22:04
We still work long hours. Some of us don't make enough
2:22:07
money to survive. The abundance never came.
2:22:10
It's tried to happen a bunch of times.
2:22:13
Basically, it's rich people saying that abundance is coming
2:22:16
because of what rich people do. They already have abundance.
2:22:20
They already have everything they'll ever need.
2:22:23
And for us, we have to fall back on the same old ideas.
2:22:27
We never know what's going to happen after the next paycheck.
2:22:30
Your employer could fire you. No matter how secure you think
2:22:34
you are. Your employer could just pull
2:22:37
the plug on you. They might give you a little bit
2:22:38
of notice, but also you don't know how the financials are
2:22:41
doing at your company unless you're in that department.
2:22:45
Case in. Point recently.
2:22:47
I was hired on as a contract worker.
2:22:50
I had a three month contract with the company.
2:22:55
After 2 1/2 months the company said hey we ran out of money.
2:23:01
We did 2 giant acquisitions. Everybody that's a contractor is
2:23:05
not a contractor anymore. So I didn't have that extra half
2:23:08
a month to. Work and after.
2:23:11
That it was a contractor to hire position, so now they're not
2:23:14
going to hire me full time. Because of that.
2:23:17
You never know what's going to happen.
2:23:19
And because of things like that, I need your support.
2:23:23
I've been doing this show for six or seven years straight and
2:23:27
I will continue doing this for the next 10 years.
2:23:29
And all I need is one minute of your time.
2:23:31
One second, actually hit the subscribe or follow button.
2:23:34
You don't even know how much that means to the show, how much
2:23:37
that means to me personally. And if you have been listening
2:23:40
to the show for a while, I get it.
2:23:42
Sometimes you forget to hit the subscribe or follow button.
2:23:44
I do it all the time on YouTube. I do it all the time on podcasts
2:23:47
and I every once in a while I'm like, Oh yeah, this show is
2:23:50
great. I don't know why I have not
2:23:52
followed it. It's in my recommendations,
2:23:54
sure. But on podcasting, it's very
2:23:57
important to follow or subscribe to a show because that's how we
2:24:01
get our audience. And if we have a bigger
2:24:04
audience, it means I can continue doing this and making
2:24:08
this podcast better. Also let me.
2:24:11
Know in the comments if you. Have comments on your podcast
2:24:13
player? What do you think of?
2:24:15
This do you think there's? Going to be over abundance with
2:24:20
robo taxis. You're still going to need money
2:24:23
to do all the things that you need to do.
2:24:25
You're still going to need to eat food.
2:24:27
You'll be able to. Of course, you'll still be able.
2:24:31
To own a car. You'll be able to own a home,
2:24:35
but if the. Price is so.
2:24:36
Expensive for you where you live.
2:24:38
There might be time to think about living someplace else,
2:24:44
someplace with a lower threshold to buy a home.
2:24:48
There are plenty of places outside of the United States
2:24:51
that are much cheaper than the United States.
2:24:55
I mean, if you go to the grocery store and you have one bag of
2:24:57
groceries and it cost $200, that's a.
2:25:01
Problem and. If this.
2:25:03
Abundance is. A promise that Elon Musk and the
2:25:08
ultra mega wealthy can predict and they can actually make this
2:25:13
promise come true. That's great.
2:25:14
It's never happened in the past and it will never happen.
2:25:16
How many thousands of years have humans been humans?
2:25:20
The rich people get richer and the poor people stay poor.
2:25:24
Sometimes there's a nice middle class.
2:25:26
Some places all over the world, there is a nice middle class.
2:25:30
In the United States right now, there's not really a middle
2:25:33
class anymore. You can't have a regular nine to
2:25:36
five job and feed a family of four.
2:25:41
Say if you have two kids, two parents and they have a dog,
2:25:45
might have a cat, white pick a fence, the American dream.
2:25:49
You know, you can have that big house.
2:25:50
You can buy a house with that wage and also buy a car and also
2:25:54
go on vacation and have some time off.
2:25:56
That doesn't exist anymore. You have to have side hustle in
2:25:59
your side hustles, have to have side hustles just to get by.
2:26:03
You can't just have. One person.
2:26:05
Making the money anymore, you'd have to have two people in the
2:26:08
household making money and that's just the normal life of a
2:26:12
normal person. I'm not saying some people are
2:26:14
outside of that because of course there are.
2:26:17
There's some people that make a bunch of money and live in a
2:26:18
place where it doesn't cost as much, but for.
2:26:22
The most of most people. Here, the abundance, according
2:26:27
to these experts, is not going to come.
2:26:30
But if it does, that's great. That's great.
2:26:33
Maybe it's. Another bubble maybe?
2:26:34
People are going to start making a bunch of money, but also.
2:26:38
Remember that, Elon? Musk says a lot of things, and
2:26:41
I'm here as the podcaster, as the.
2:26:45
Podcast about Elon Musk. The original Elon Musk podcast.
2:26:49
Take everything he says with a grain of salt because I know
2:26:52
I've been covering him for almost 10 years now.
2:26:55
FSD. Remember when that was going to
2:26:56
happen? Almost a decade ago and it still
2:27:00
hasn't happened. And not the actual FSD.
2:27:04
It's a still driver assist. So remember when he says
2:27:08
something, don't take it to heart.
2:27:11
Just remember it's a great idea, He has some great ideas and
2:27:14
eventually maybe it might happen.
2:27:16
But the overabundance of power, overabundance of food,
2:27:19
overabundance of wealth. Take it.
2:27:22
All with a grain of salt. So.
2:27:25
That's it for today, everybody. Take care of yourselves and each
2:27:27
other and I'll see you in the next one.
2:27:31
America's return to deep space. With people on board is
2:27:35
imminent. NASA's Artemis 2 mission, the
2:27:38
first crude voyage beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in
2:27:42
1972, has a launch window opening February 6th of 2026
2:27:48
with a fully stacked Space Launch System rocket and Orion
2:27:51
spacecraft scheduled to roll out to launchpad 39-B on January
2:27:58
17th of 2026. And after resolving critical
2:28:02
heat shield and life support system concerns that delayed the
2:28:04
mission seven months, NASA officials expressed confidence
2:28:08
the vehicle was ready to safely carry 4 astronauts around the
2:28:12
moon on a 10 day journey that will see them travel 4600 miles
2:28:18
beyond the lunar far side, farther than any buddy has ever
2:28:23
been in human history. Now, the most significant
2:28:27
technical hurdle facing Artemis 2 stemmed from unexpected damage
2:28:31
to Orion's heat shield during Artemis 1 mission in December
2:28:35
2022. Engineers discovered that the AB
2:28:38
coat ablative material cracked and shed unevenly across
2:28:43
approximately 100 locations during re entry.
2:28:47
NASA's investigation, completed in December of 2024, identified
2:28:51
the root cause. During Orion's planned skip
2:28:55
entry maneuver, where the capsule skips in and out of the
2:28:58
atmosphere, heat accumulated inside the heat shield faster
2:29:03
than gases could escape or vent through the material, creating
2:29:06
internal pressure that caused fracturing.
2:29:09
Now, rather than replacing the already installed heat shield,
2:29:13
which would have caused significant additional delays,
2:29:16
possibly six months to a year, NASA opted for a trajectory
2:29:20
modification. Now, Artemis 2 will fly a
2:29:23
shortened skip entry profile that avoids the temperature
2:29:26
conditions that triggered gas generation.
2:29:29
Now. This reduces available launch
2:29:32
opportunities by approximately 50% compared to Artemis One, but
2:29:36
keeps the mission on track. Rick Henfling, lead Artemis 2
2:29:41
entry flight directory confirm the modification is not going to
2:29:46
replicate the temperature environment which was conducive
2:29:49
to that gas generative rate now additional technical issues
2:29:54
resolved in recent months include faulty motor valve
2:29:57
circuitry in the environmental control and life support system.
2:30:01
The ECLSSA bent flight termination system cable
2:30:05
discovered during final checkouts, which was replaced in
2:30:08
January of twenty 26th 5th and an Orion pressurization valve
2:30:13
that exhibited problems before December's countdown test.
2:30:17
NASA also swapped RS25 engine E2O63 with E2O61 in April after
2:30:23
discovering A hydraulic leak, now the first ever vertical RS25
2:30:28
replacement in the program history.
2:30:31
Now the four astronaut crew completed a crucial countdown
2:30:35
demonstration test on December 20th of last year, marking the
2:30:38
final major crew milestone before launch.
2:30:41
Commander Reid Weisman, pilot Victor Glover and mission
2:30:45
specialist Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen suited up in their
2:30:49
Orion Crew Survival System suits, performed the ceremonial
2:30:53
walk out from astronaut crew quarters, traveled to the VAB,
2:30:58
the Vehicle Assembly building, rode the elevator 275 feet to
2:31:02
the crew access arm, and boarded the Orion spacecraft for a full
2:31:06
5.5 hour rehearsal of launch day procedures.
2:31:10
The countdown proceeded to T -, 29 seconds before the planned
2:31:15
cut off teams. Successfully navigated.
2:31:19
Real time challenges including audio communications problems
2:31:22
and life support system issues during closeout demonstrating
2:31:25
readiness to handle these contingencies.
2:31:28
The test was originally scheduled for November 19th but
2:31:31
was postponed. Do what we blemish on a thermal
2:31:34
barrier around the crew access hatch that required patching.
2:31:37
Now the crew has trained intensively for over 2.5 years
2:31:41
since their April 2023 assignment, completing more than
2:31:44
30 integrated mission simulations with flight control
2:31:47
teams. The July 2025 suited crew test
2:31:50
marked the first time all four astronauts entered the fully
2:31:54
powered spacecraft together, running through emergency
2:31:57
scenarios including sudden cabin leaks and life support
2:32:00
functions. And the Artemis 2 crew have and
2:32:05
the Artemis 2 crew are going to represent multiple historic
2:32:10
firsts. Victor Glover will become the
2:32:11
first person of color to travel to the moon.
2:32:14
Christina Koch, who holds the record for longest single Space
2:32:16
Flight by a woman at 328 days, will become the first woman to
2:32:20
journey to the moon. Jeremy Hansen, a Canadian Space
2:32:24
Agency astronaut and Royal Canadian Air Force fighter
2:32:27
pilot, will become the first non American to leave Earth's orbit
2:32:30
and travel to the moon. Commander Reid.
2:32:33
Weissman. A former Navy test pilot and
2:32:36
chief of NASA's astronaut office leads this crew.
2:32:41
Now it's going to be about 10 days for this mission.
2:32:45
It's going to follow a multi translunar injection trajectory.
2:32:49
Here's the days and what's going to happen.
2:32:52
Day one launch aboard the SLS and Orion will then enter a high
2:32:57
elliptical Earth orbit. And then during day one and day
2:33:01
2, the crew will test life support systems.
2:33:03
While they're orbiting, they'll perform manual flight
2:33:05
demonstrations, conduct proximity operations with the
2:33:10
spent upper stage, and then as it goes into day three, they're
2:33:15
going to do a translunar injection burn which sends Orion
2:33:19
hurtling towards the Moon days 3.
2:33:23
Through six will. Be a four day outbound coast.
2:33:28
No thruster as they're just coasting towards the moon.
2:33:30
Crew continues systems verification.
2:33:32
So the whole time they're going to be working day 6.
2:33:36
And seven, they're going. To fly by the moon approximately
2:33:39
4600 miles beyond the Moon's far side, the crew may observe the
2:33:43
fully illuminated far side and this will be the time that the
2:33:48
first humans ever will see this directly and a 7 to 10 free
2:33:54
return trajectory back towards Earth.
2:33:58
Day 10 is go time. The modified skip re entry we
2:34:01
talked about earlier will happen and then the splashdown in the
2:34:05
Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego.
2:34:10
Now Glover. Has said that they're testing
2:34:13
the Oran capsule, they're testing the suits, they're
2:34:16
testing the landing and recovery procedures, they're testing the
2:34:20
flight control team and it's a much more hostile environment
2:34:23
because we're so far away from home mostly.
2:34:29
People go to. The International Space Station.
2:34:31
Now they'll go in low Earth orbit.
2:34:33
It's the first time in 50 years plus that humans will be going
2:34:37
to as far away as the moon and then 4600 miles beyond the
2:34:43
moon's far side, the farthest they've ever gone, which is
2:34:46
incredible. But the path to.
2:34:48
February 2020. 6 has been marked by significant schedule shifts.
2:34:53
This was targeted for late 2024. The 1st or the second flight.
2:34:57
Artemis slipped to September 2025, then to April 2026.
2:35:01
Following the December 2024 announcement of heat shield
2:35:04
investigation results, integration efficiencies allowed
2:35:08
NASA to pull the target forward to February 2026 by March 2025.
2:35:15
Now, Jared Isaacman was sworn in December 18th.
2:35:17
He's the hilarious dawn. He was a, he's a billionaire.
2:35:22
He's a NASA administrator now, and he was sworn in December
2:35:26
18th after a prolonged nomination process.
2:35:28
It went back and forth. He's Elon's friend.
2:35:30
So Trump didn't like him. There's politics going on there,
2:35:34
but he's in. And within the next three years,
2:35:36
he says, we're going to land American astronauts again on the
2:35:39
moon, but this time with the infrastructure to stay now.
2:35:44
When he. Says this.
2:35:46
He's saying we are battling. China in space?
2:35:50
Basically, if China needs to go to the moon for some reason, we
2:35:54
want to go there again. But we're not just going to go
2:35:56
there and just grab a couple rocks, couple moon stones.
2:36:00
We want to set down a base of operations.
2:36:03
And that is so we can flex our muscles and beat our chests and
2:36:07
be stronger than other people on the earth, which is fair enough.
2:36:11
That's what we did for Apollo. But do we really need to do that
2:36:14
still? Are we still trying to beat our
2:36:16
chests and being better than everybody?
2:36:18
Yes, that's, I guess that's what we're doing now.
2:36:19
But Jared Eisenman is not about that.
2:36:22
Jared is a science first administrator for NASA.
2:36:28
He's a. Really nice person.
2:36:29
I've had the pleasure to DM him a few times and every time it's
2:36:34
been very nice and he seems to be a really nice person every
2:36:38
time I've talked to him. Nothing but help, nothing but
2:36:41
good vibes. So I'm glad Jared is in this
2:36:45
position. He's going to do wonderful
2:36:47
things for NASA and I hope that it all goes well over there.
2:36:51
And for this trip, the budget proposal called for a 24% cut to
2:36:57
NASA May of 2025. That's incredible.
2:37:02
Why would you cut 24% of NASA's budget?
2:37:04
The most beloved part? Of our government.
2:37:08
It doesn't make any sense. Especially with.
2:37:10
The return on investment that NASA gets for every dollar you
2:37:13
get about 9 or $10 back for every dollar you invest in NASA.
2:37:17
So I don't see why you would cut that much funding.
2:37:20
That was the. Largest single year.
2:37:21
Reduction in agency history, including ending SLS in Orion
2:37:25
after Artemis 3 and cancelling the Lunar Gateway.
2:37:30
That's what Trump. Wanted to do.
2:37:31
Senator Ted Cruz LED a congressional rescue, adding $10
2:37:34
billion for NASA to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed in
2:37:38
July 4th of 2025. This secured $4.1 billion for
2:37:42
SLS rockets supporting Artemis 4 and five 2.6 billion for Gateway
2:37:48
and funding to continue ISS operations through 2025.
2:37:53
Ted Cruz. Good.
2:37:56
On you we. Need NASA here now, Cruz.
2:38:00
Said the moon. Mission must happen at President
2:38:02
Trump's term or else China will beat us there and build the
2:38:05
first moon base. Now if China does build the
2:38:08
first moon base, why are they doing it?
2:38:11
Is it because they're? The big bad enemy or.
2:38:13
Is it because they just want to explore and they have great
2:38:16
technology? If you ask them, they'll say
2:38:19
it's for science. That's what we said too.
2:38:21
Remember that we went to the moon the first time, and then
2:38:25
later we realized that the government wasn't telling us the
2:38:28
truth, and it was all because we wanted to be stronger than
2:38:31
Russia. So I just want to open your eyes
2:38:34
to everything. I'm very positive about this,
2:38:36
and I think it's great. But there's always different
2:38:38
causes, right? And of course, we want to go
2:38:41
back to the moon and settle a base because if China builds the
2:38:45
first moon base instead of just saying like, hey China, that's
2:38:50
great, we want to help you. Or hey China, can we work
2:38:54
together in some way? Let's do this together, but
2:38:57
instead make it into a competition.
2:39:00
But if it, if that's what it takes to get people back to the
2:39:03
moon and build a base, of course, like I'm all for that.
2:39:07
I just don't want anybody to get hurt.
2:39:09
That's it. Now there's going to be lunar
2:39:11
landing Artemis 3. So if Artemis 2 lands as a
2:39:17
prerequisite to Artemis 3 and they think.
2:39:20
That's going to happen in mid 20. 27 But that's not going to
2:39:23
happen and never happens on time.
2:39:25
So more than likely 2029, maybe 20-30.
2:39:29
They're going to have to go over all of the data that Artemis 2
2:39:35
gathered. And also.
2:39:37
SpaceX. Isn't even close.
2:39:39
To landing a Starship on the moon yet they haven't even
2:39:42
refueled in orbit. So mid. 2027.
2:39:46
Seems like a stretch, right? It'll be the first crude landing
2:39:50
since 1972. And if SpaceX completes
2:39:54
development of the HLS. So back in October 2025, Sean
2:39:59
Duffy, who was the acting NASA chief, said, I love SpaceX.
2:40:03
It's an amazing company. The problem is they're behind.
2:40:06
He called him out. He called out Elon Musk, Sean
2:40:08
Duffy, that Elon went on a tirade.
2:40:11
They updated their website to show that there's other ways
2:40:13
that they could do the HLS that I don't know why they didn't do
2:40:17
that to begin with. Why didn't?
2:40:20
They just do the easier. Way in the faster way first but
2:40:24
instead after Sean Duffy called them out they had a meeting and
2:40:29
put out a bunch of renders of the Starship and they basically
2:40:34
said hey we're going to get this done so they want to build
2:40:37
confidence with their investors as well.
2:40:39
The people that are investing in SpaceX, even though they are
2:40:41
private investors, they still need those investors money in
2:40:45
order to build Starlink and build Starship.
2:40:49
And SpaceX has completed 49 of its required milestones for
2:40:52
Artemis lunar Lander contract, but yet has not demonstrated
2:40:57
critical capabilities including orbital refuelling.
2:41:00
That's approximately 15 to 20 tanker flights needed to fuel
2:41:05
Starship for lunar operations, 15 to 20 tankers.
2:41:10
You have to do that with an exit about a week.
2:41:12
You have to fly 20 rockets in a week in order for these.
2:41:18
That's what Elon has said before.
2:41:20
They can do it in seven days. Within seven days, they can fly
2:41:22
all these tankers in free fuel. Now.
2:41:25
An internal NASA review established February 2028 as the
2:41:29
70% confidence baseline for a Starship HLS readiness,
2:41:34
suggesting the mid 2027 target carries significant risk.
2:41:38
NASA open bidding for additional moon landing contracts because
2:41:41
of this. And that happened in October
2:41:43
2025 as a hedge. So Blue Origin, if Artemis is
2:41:49
not working out well for Starship, Blue Origin's going to
2:41:52
swoop in and get that contract. Now there is Artemis. 4, which
2:41:59
is going to happen in late 2028, which will be the first docking
2:42:02
of Lunar Gateway and it'll require a new mobile launcher.
2:42:06
So that might we're going to push that back to 2032.
2:42:10
Artemis 5 we're going to push back to 2034, which includes
2:42:14
ESA's E Spirit module in Canada's Candidarm 3, and then
2:42:18
Artemis 6. Who knows when it's going to
2:42:20
happen, but Gateway crew in science, airlock integration.
2:42:23
So instead of having just an Orion capsule that gets to moon
2:42:28
orbit, docks with a Starship, Starship goes to the lunar
2:42:33
surface and they're going to have the Gateway there too.
2:42:37
And NASA says this, but I don't know if it's going to happen
2:42:41
after 2020, after 2031. Annual lunar landings plan and
2:42:46
I'm. Not being a heater, I'm just
2:42:47
being a realistic here Post 2030 because it's politics, right?
2:42:51
And if they decide to pull the funding because it's not
2:42:54
bringing any money in. The Space Launch System is not
2:42:57
only a rocket, it does provide thousands of people high paying
2:43:02
jobs throughout the United States of America.
2:43:06
Engineers, scientists, all the people that support this
2:43:11
program, they get paid a lot of money and therefore they pump
2:43:15
that money back into the economy.
2:43:17
And then America makes money from those people, so they need.
2:43:21
SLS and they need to keep. This going but post 2031, who
2:43:24
even knows if it's going to be around.
2:43:26
So there are some milestones left before humans go back to
2:43:30
space. The target date for the rollout
2:43:33
to Launchpad 39-B will be January 17th, 2026.
2:43:37
There's going to be a wet dress rehearsal in late January 2026.
2:43:42
There's going to be a flight readiness review after the wet
2:43:45
dress rehearsal. So sometime early February 1st
2:43:50
maybe maybe late January 25th or something.
2:43:55
Who knows when the wet dress rehearsal is going to be
2:43:57
completed. Launch window opens February
2:43:59
6th, 2026. The wet dress rehearsal will
2:44:02
load over 730,000 gallons of liquid oxygen and liquid
2:44:07
hydrogen into the rocket. That's a process that proved
2:44:10
challenging during Artemis 1 preparations when there were a
2:44:13
ton of hydrogen leaks, which caused repeated delays.
2:44:18
NASA will conduct multiple countdown rehearsals to T 30
2:44:21
seconds without the crew aboard and Acting Associate
2:44:25
Administrator Lori Glaze assess the current readiness said right
2:44:29
now we could still make the February launch.
2:44:32
We've got to have a lot of things go smoothly and go well,
2:44:35
but it's still feasible.