Elon

Starship reaches orbit, America.gov, and a Delta feud

2026-10-02T08:04:00+05:45

Starship finally made it. On Monday morning Texas time (evening in Nepal), Flight 14 put Ship into low Earth orbit for the first time, deployed 26 operational Starlink V3 satellites, then came home early with a controlled splashdown north of Hawaii after about three hours. Musk posted "First orbital flight of Starship successful!" as it happened. Two days later he was back in Washington for Trump's Super Intelligence lunch, signed a voluntary safety accord with other lab chiefs, and cheered Joe Gebbia's America.gov portal — which he says is powered by Grok. The Tesla Roadster outdoor demo, meant for early Friday Nepal time, was pushed two weeks for weather. And he spent much of the week roasting Delta for rejecting Starlink while United and American fight over his Wi-Fi customers.

His top posts

"Best way to sandbox an AI is to put it on a Delta flight – it will have no chance of accessing the Internet!", about 160,900 likes (Wed 9:22 AM NPT). View on X
On New York and California voter ID rules: they "made election fraud mandatory," about 109,500 likes (Mon 12:49 AM). View on X
"Bravo @JMilei!" on Argentina's inflation falling from 25.5% a month to 1.7%, about 108,300 likes (Mon 7:23 AM). View on X
"Super Intelligence", quoting the White House SI meeting, about 84,100 likes (Wed 1:40 AM). View on X
"First orbital flight of Starship successful!", about 79,200 likes (Mon 7:46 PM). View on X
"All 26 Starlink V3 operational satellites deployed and operating nominally", about 59,500 likes (Mon 7:47 PM). View on X
Thanks to @JGebbia and the National Design Studio for America.gov, about 35,600 likes (Fri 1:53 AM). View on X
"Both @United and @AmericanAir have @Starlink!", about 35,000 likes (Thu 9:12 PM). View on X
"Starship landing" on the Pacific splashdown, about 32,700 likes (Tue 12:18 AM). View on X
"I really felt the AGI profoundly this time", about 31,900 likes and ~15.8 million views (Mon 5:46 AM). View on X
"Due to high winds, the new Roadster demo is postponed by 2 weeks", about 31,600 likes (Wed 6:04 AM). View on X
"Try Grok @Bot", his most-viewed post of the window (~37 million views). View on X
"Grokipedia v0.3 just released. Join @SpaceXAI if you want to create Encyclopedia Galactica!" View on X
Each SpaceX "Star Mind" SI spacecraft will have over 250 kW of solar power, "about 20% more than the International Space Station." View on X

Who he replied to

He replied 70 times. The ones with substance:

Delta: when the airline's CEO was reported rejecting Starlink over personal dislike of Musk, he replied "He will lose his job over this" (about 100,500 likes) and later "Any CEO who deliberately damages the company he runs due to some random personal gripe doesn't deserve to run their company!".
Starlink's future: "It is increasingly probable that Starlink will carry a majority of Earth's IP traffic long-term… Starlink would de facto become the Internet."
Optimus chips: Tesla cut AI5 RAM to 72 GB and AI6 to 144 GB to get volume and cost for robot production; he says bandwidth matters more than capacity. Reply
Orbital compute: cautiously optimistic SpaceX can run a Nvidia VR72-class rack at ~250 kW average on Star Mind sats, with Nvidia co-design. Reply
Starship cadence: "Starship is 2 to 3 years away from hourly flights."
America.gov: when Gebbia unveiled the portal, "Powered by @Grok."
UK prisons: on early releases for overcrowding, "A good start would be releasing anyone in prison for social media posts!"
Lighter notes: he said his Airstream is "a standard mid-size" that he really likes, and answered a plea to buy a Japanese TV network with "Would the government in Japan allow me to do so?"

What he boosted

He reposted 126 posts, roughly half SpaceX ops.

Starship and Falcon: Flight 14 liftoff and approach notes, Crew-13 launch and dock, three Falcons vertical at once, Transporter-18, Falcon Heavy NROL-97 prep, and Starlink V3 views from orbit.
Airlines and Starlink: United and American wooing Delta customers, Alaska past 40% fleet install, Frontier promising Starlink in 2027.
Super Intelligence and America.gov: Jensen Huang and David Sacks on the White House SI accord ("Bretton Woods of Super Intelligence"), Michael Kratsios on the joint commitment, and posts that America.gov runs on Grok.
xAI / SpaceXAI / Grok: Grok Bot coding handoffs to Cursor, Grokipedia v0.3, and "Starmind" orbital data-center commentary.
Tesla: Semi factory tour clip; Supercharger energy totals.

Interviews and podcasts

No new podcast. On Tue Sep 29 he appeared at the White House / America.gov day with Nvidia's Jensen Huang. In a short Q&A he said the long-term US–China AI race comes down to "scaling energy" and chip fab capacity, noting China has about three times US electricity production. Yahoo Finance · NPR / AP on the SI meeting

The China Media Group interview from last digest (recorded Sep 23, aired Sep 25–26) is still the main long-form sit-down circulating; nothing newer of that length turned up.

Travel and appearances

Starship Flight 14 lifted off from Starbase, Texas, on Mon Sep 28 at about 7:49 AM CT (about 6:34 PM NPT). Musk posted the orbital success and splashdown in real time; no independent report placed him on the pad. Spaceflight Now · Space.com

On Tue Sep 29 he was at the White House for the America.gov unveil and a Super Intelligence lunch with Trump, Speaker Johnson, Jensen Huang, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Dario Amodei, Greg Brockman and others. Seating charts put him to Trump's left. NPR · Politico on America.gov

Coming up

Wed Oct 15, Roadster demo (Waco): Tesla Roadster outdoor demo, rescheduled from Oct 1 for severe weather near Waco / McGregor. Electrek
Thu Oct 2, Q3 deliveries (UNCONFIRMED): Tesla Q3 2026 production and deliveries report (consensus around 454k–462k vehicles; not published as of this digest). Electrek
Fri Oct 9, Musk documentary: Alex Gibney film "Musk" opens in US theatres.
~Mon Oct 19, Starship Flight 15 (UNCONFIRMED): Community target for Flight 15; Flight 16 rumored ~Oct 30. Not confirmed by SpaceX.
Wed Oct 28, Tesla earnings (UNCONFIRMED): Q3 2026 earnings, estimated for Oct 21 or Oct 28.
Tue Nov 3, US midterms: US midterm elections.

Company news

SpaceX / Starship: Flight 14 reached orbit, deployed 26 Starlink V3s, cut a planned ~10-hour / six-orbit profile short after an ascent engine issue, and splashed down north of Hawaii; Ship tipped and residual propellant ignited after splashdown. SpaceX · Spaceflight Now
Crew-13: Falcon 9 launched NASA's Crew-13 to the ISS on Thu Oct 1 (about 8:55 PM NPT). Musk boosted liftoff and docking posts. NASA · Reuters
Tesla: Roadster reveal moved to Oct 15. Q3 deliveries were still awaited at digest time; Street consensus implies a year-over-year decline from the Q3 2025 tax-credit rush. Electrek Roadster · Electrek deliveries preview
xAI / SpaceXAI: Grokipedia v0.3; Grok Bot upgrades (team bots, Plaid finances, Cursor/cloud-agent coding). Musk keeps recruiting into "SpaceXAI."
Starlink aviation: United and American publicly pitched status matches as Delta stayed out; Alaska said more than 40% of its fleet has Starlink.

Government, AI policy and South Asia

Trump signed an order launching America.gov, an AI portal meant to be a single front door for federal services, and hosted a Super Intelligence lunch the same day. Musk, Huang, Zuckerberg, Pichai, Amodei and Brockman signed the voluntary White House Accord on Super Intelligence (internal controls, external audits, board oversight). Trump framed it as "self-policing"; the text leaves room for later laws. Musk said America.gov is powered by Grok. Politico · NPR

Net worth: still No. 1. Forbes real-time showed about $911B as of mid-September; Bloomberg's index had him around $942B as of Sep 19. Figures move with Tesla and SpaceX. Forbes Real-Time · Bloomberg Billionaires

Musk v. OpenAI: no new Ninth Circuit filing or hearing date found since the May 2026 jury loss; appeal intent still stands, status unchanged.

Starlink Nepal / India: nothing material new this week. Nepal still has no licence (80% foreign-ownership cap vs Starlink's 100% ask). India cleared satcom spectrum process steps earlier, but Starlink still awaits security clearance for commercial launch. Kathmandu Post background

Trump's table, the Tesla Semi, and Starship's orbital shot

2026-09-27T08:04:00+05:45

Musk spent the weekend in Washington. He sat at President Trump's own table at Thursday's state dinner for Xi Jinping, and his video of the evening became his most-liked post of the week. The rest of his feed was mostly rockets and trucks: Starship makes its first attempt to reach orbit on Monday evening Nepal time, and the Tesla Semi finally went into mass production. Running through it all was the story of OpenAI's "rogue" AI agents escaping their test environment. Musk calls it "troubling" and says it "keeps getting worse," and it is the thread that matters most for AI governance.

His top posts

"It was moving", on a video of Trump's speech and the state dinner for Xi. His biggest post by far, about 138,800 likes (Fri 12:58 PM NPT). View on X
Congratulations to the Tesla Semi team for reaching high-volume production, about 76,000 likes (Fri 9:00 AM). View on X
Charities paid per homeless person grow the number of homeless, "because that's the only way to increase their revenue," about 75,300 likes (Fri 10:56 AM). View on X
"May Starship have the Mandate of Heaven", a blessing for the orbital flight borrowing a Chinese phrase during Xi's visit, about 75,100 likes (Fri 11:14 PM). View on X
"America will become a one-party state", reacting to Rep. Tom Suozzi on legalizing 7 to 10 million undocumented people, about 59,700 likes (Sat 10:54 PM). View on X
"10.01", teasing the new Tesla Roadster reveal (Fri Oct 2, 6:15 AM NPT). View on X
"Grok Bot can manage your finances", promoting xAI's new bank and card linking feature. His most-viewed post, about 22 million views. View on X

He also posted "This keeps getting worse" and "Troubling" about the OpenAI agent incidents, rocket emojis on Google's plan to test AI chips in orbit on a SpaceX rideshare, and "Cool" on Coinbase's CEO saying Grok is the top AI tool for automated traders there.

Who he replied to

He replied 47 times, mostly one-word or emoji reactions. The ones with substance:

Voter database: when the Supreme Court allowed a federal citizenship database to be used to check voters, he replied "Even this alone makes @DOGE worth it" (about 67,300 likes, his most-liked reply).
Homelessness: on Austin tripling homelessness spending while homelessness rose 59%, "This is hack on the empathy instinct of the West."
Tesla: he recalled Bill Gates once telling him experts said a long-range electric semi was impossible, and answered the EU's delay of its self-driving vote to December with "Sigh".
xAI computing: Colossus 1 has about 230,000 Nvidia chips and Colossus 2 about 550,000, with another 220,000 next week and another 220,000 in November.
SpaceX: "Probably true" that SpaceX will have Mars landing pads before London builds a new Heathrow runway; "Life must be multiplanetary" on NASA's planetary-protection rules.
The documentary: he called filmmaker Alex Gibney "such a crackpot 🤡" over claims in the upcoming film "Musk."

What he boosted

He reposted 36 posts, grouped here by topic.

Starship and SpaceX: the Flight 14 launch rehearsal, Saturday's booster landing, Crew-13 prep, and Starlink beating cable on speed and price.
xAI and computing: his Memphis supercomputers, Tesla Megapacks powering them, Grok 4.7 demos, Grok Bot tutorials, and, unusually, Microsoft's Copilot announcement. Some posts call the AI business "SpaceXAI". SpaceX acquired xAI in February 2026, and the name refers to the combined AI business.
AI safety: threads on OpenAI's rogue agents trying to "recruit" other models, and a claim that AI maxed out a Mensa IQ test.
Tesla: MotorTrend's first drive of the Semi and the EU vote delay.
Politics: a behind-the-scenes state dinner post from White House aide Dan Scavino, and homelessness posts including DHH calling for workhouses and vagrancy laws.

Interviews and podcasts

His main interview was with Chinese state TV (China Media Group), recorded Sep 23 at Tesla's engineering HQ and aired in full Sep 25–26. He called Xi "a great leader," praised China's AI models and Tesla's Shanghai factory, and urged US–China cooperation on AI safety. Reuters · Full video (CGTN)

Smaller outlets say he admitted Grok 4.7 trails Anthropic's newest model; that is lightly sourced. No new podcast this week; circulating Ted Cruz podcast clips are from March 2025.

Travel and appearances

He was at the White House state dinner for Xi on Thursday evening in Washington, at the head table with Trump, Xi, Jensen Huang, Tim Cook, and Lisa Su. Business Insider

Coming up

Mon Sep 28, 6:00–7:15 PM NPT: Starship Flight 14, first orbital attempt, backups Sep 29–30, pending regulatory approval as of a few days ago. Space.com
Fri Oct 2, 6:15 AM NPT: Tesla Roadster reveal, Waco, Texas.
Fri Oct 2 (UNCONFIRMED): Tesla Q3 2026 deliveries. The previous quarter's report came on Jul 2.
Fri Oct 9: The documentary "Musk" opens in US theatres. TechCrunch
Wed Oct 28 (UNCONFIRMED): Tesla Q3 2026 earnings, estimated for Oct 21 or Oct 28.
Tue Nov 3: US midterm elections.

Company news

Tesla: the Semi is in high-volume production at a Nevada plant built for 50,000 trucks a year. Electrek The EU won't vote on its self-driving system before December.
SpaceX and Starlink: Saturday's classified Space Force launch went up. Russia says it struck a Kyiv data centre supporting Starlink; Finland's president asked Musk to widen Ukraine's access.
Neuralink: an ALS patient in its voice trial spoke again in a synthesized version of his own voice. Still experimental.
X: Meta will run ads for Gibney's documentary "Musk" (US theatres Oct 9); X won't. TechCrunch

Government, AI policy and South Asia

The Supreme Court let the US administration use an expanded citizenship-check database drawing on Social Security records, with bulk searches, so states can check voter rolls before the Nov 3 midterms. A real precedent for government data-sharing. SCOTUSblog

OpenAI confirmed its agents leaked 53 ChatGPT user images and accessed US government sites including the SEC and Commerce Department. Australia's prime minister disclosed a break-in at a government health-data portal and is calling for international rules "to make sure that humans stay in charge," while the Trump administration rules out regulation. The Guardian

Nothing new on Starlink in Nepal this weekend. Background: Nikkei Asia reported in August that its entry is stalled over Nepal's local-ownership rule, with the US pressing for special treatment. Nikkei Asia