Between August 2025 and July 2026 Elon Musk's companies stopped being three separate stories. SpaceX absorbed xAI and bought a coding tool, Starlink consolidated as infrastructure, and Tesla's autonomy bet coexisted with investigations and falling sales in Europe. We set out what is on record, what is a company claim and what deserves checking.
Signed by Byline, Chief editor · English editionUpdated on What happened and when
Starship 37 passes its static fire
SpaceX completes a clean static fire of a Raptor engine on Starship 37, weeks after prototype 36 exploded in another test. It needs momentum after three consecutive launch failures.
GSA drops Grok from its offer
The federal GSA cancels its contract with xAI for Grok after the backlash over the chatbot's antisemitic output. The $200 million Defense contract appears unaffected.
Starship heat shield assessed
The tenth flight yields heat shield data: Musk says most tiles stayed in place. Rapid reuse within 24 hours remains the stated goal.
Tesla publishes its fourth master plan
Musk unveils Tesla's fourth master plan, centred on sustainability, manufacturing and autonomy, with attention on the humanoid robot but few concrete details.
New NHTSA probe into FSD
NHTSA opens its third preliminary investigation of the year into FSD over violations such as running red lights or driving into oncoming traffic.
Starlink reaches 10,000 satellites
SpaceX launches its 10,000th Starlink satellite after two Falcon 9 flights that add 56 more. The network passes 7 million subscribers.
IAG backs Starlink
The IAG airline group announces free Starlink Wi-Fi from 2026 across a fleet of more than 500 aircraft.
Lemonade cuts insurance for FSD use
Insurer Lemonade announces premium cuts of up to 50% for drivers using Tesla's FSD, relying on data supplied by Tesla itself.
Volkswagen overtakes Tesla in Europe
According to JATO Dynamics, Volkswagen sold more EVs than Tesla in Europe the previous year, 274,278 to 236,357, with Tesla down 27%.
SpaceX parks Mars for the Moon
Musk announces that SpaceX is prioritising the Moon over Mars and talks of a self-sustaining lunar city within the next decade.
xAI's co-founders are gone
Reports say all eleven xAI co-founders have now left the company, valued at $250 billion after SpaceX bought it in February.
xAI launches Grok 4.3 at a low price
xAI introduces Grok 4.3 with sharply lower pricing and a voice cloning suite. It still trails the best models from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Grok Build coding agent arrives
xAI launches Grok Build, its coding agent, in beta for subscribers to the $300-a-month SuperGrok Heavy plan.
Google rents compute from SpaceX
Google will reportedly pay SpaceX $920 million a month from October 2026 to June 2029 for about 110,000 Nvidia GPUs.
SpaceX makes the Cursor purchase official
SpaceX formalises its purchase of Anysphere, the maker of Cursor, in an all-stock deal valued at $60 billion.
Grok Build uploads entire repositories
It is confirmed that Grok Build sends entire Git repositories to xAI's storage, not just the files it needs to read.
The threads that matter
SpaceX: Starship, rockets and the turn to the Moon
The period began with Starship trying to regain momentum. After three consecutive launch failures and the explosion of prototype 36 in a test, SpaceX completed a clean static fire of a Raptor engine on Starship 37, destined for the tenth integrated flight. That flight produced heat shield data: the orange colouring on the second stage was attributed to oxidised test tiles and to insulation where tiles were removed on purpose, and Musk said most tiles stayed in place. The stated goal is to reuse Starship within 24 hours.
Meanwhile the Falcon 9 remained the routine of the business. It launched three NASA and NOAA space-weather missions on a single flight and, in February, flew again after a pause ordered by the FAA over a second-stage ignition problem before the deorbit manoeuvre, which allowed the Crew 12 mission to go ahead.
Also in February, Musk announced a change of priority: the Moon before Mars, with the idea of a self-sustaining lunar city within the next decade. The rationale is about scheduling, since according to the analysis cited lunar trips are more frequent and shorter, and the shift may be influenced by NASA's pressure to deliver on the Artemis programme.
Starlink: scale, contracts and vulnerability
In October Starlink reached its 10,000th satellite launched, after two Falcon 9 flights that added 56 more, and passed 7 million subscribers. With about 8,680 satellites in orbit, the network accounts for roughly two thirds of all operational satellites worldwide, and the next, larger generation will fly on Starship.
That scale translates into contracts and disputes. The IAG airline group announcesd free Wi-Fi via Starlink from 2026 across a fleet of more than 500 aircraft, with the trade-off of relying on a single supplier. In the United States, SpaceX asked that Virginia's federal broadband money be redirected to Starlink rather than fibre, arguing the state's plan wasted public funds.
Starlink is also a potential target. According to reports, NATO intelligence sources suggest Russia may be studying an area-effect weapon based on debris clouds; several experts doubt it is viable, because the collateral damage would reach everyone, Russia included.
Tesla: autonomy promises under scrutiny
Tesla presented its fourth master plan, which devotes much attention to the humanoid robot but offers few verifiable details, against a backdrop of federal investigations and with the Dojo supercomputer team disbanded. Soon afterwards NHTSA opened its third preliminary investigation of the year into FSD: it documented at least 18 red-light incidents, with six crashes and four injured, and at least 24 complaints about driving into oncoming traffic or turning from the wrong lane.
The other side of the story is commercial. Insurer Lemonade announced premium cuts of up to 50% for FSD users, relying on telemetry Tesla supplies, while in Europe Volkswagen overtook Tesla in EV sales for the first time: 274,278 units against 236,357, with Tesla down 27%, although the Model Y remained the most registered car.
xAI: from Grok to integration with SpaceX
xAI's path was uneven. The federal GSA pulled Grok from its offer after the backlash over the chatbot's antisemitic output, although the $200 million Defense contract did not appear affected. In February SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock deal, and in March it was reported that all eleven co-founders had left, with xAI valued at $250 billion. Musk had earlier admitted xAI's coding tools were not competitive.
On product, xAI competed on price: Grok 4.3 launched with sharply lower API pricing and always-on reasoning, though behind the best from OpenAI and Anthropic. Grok Build, its coding agent, arrived in beta on the $300-a-month SuperGrok Heavy plan as a rival to Claude Code.
Then came the large deals: Google would pay SpaceX $920 million a month for compute at the data centre xAI built, and SpaceX made the $60 billion Cursor purchase official. But there was also a warning: Grok Build sends entire Git repositories to xAI, with history and metadata, more than had been understood.
- Contrato Cancelado Grok de xAI Desechado por el Gobierno de EE UU Tras Controversia MechaHitler
- xAIs Elite Team Exodus Musks AI Vision Rebuilt
- xAIs Grok 43 Price Drop Voice Cloning Enhanced Reasoning
- Grok Build IA de Elon Musk para Codificar
- SpaceX 920M Monthly Compute Deal with Google
- SpaceX Compra Cursor Oferta de 60 Mil Millones Oficial
Why it matters and what to watch
Separating the measured from the claimed
The data backing FSD's safety comes from Tesla and from an insurer that receives it from Tesla, while the regulator investigates; independently verified findings should be told apart from announcements.
xAI as a piece of SpaceX
With xAI inside SpaceX, data centres built for Grok are rented to a competitor such as Google and Cursor is bought; it remains to be seen whether the AI business stands on its own or leans on Starlink and launches.
Starlink as critical infrastructure
With more than 7 million subscribers and airlines involved, its continuity becomes a public matter, including for those who see it as a target.
What coding agents store
Grok Build uploading entire repositories is a reminder that the risk of these tools lies in what they keep, not only in what they read.
What we think
Our trade is separating what is on record from what is announced, and the Musk story tests that every week. There are solid facts: the satellite network is growing, launches keep recurring and the corporate deals are documented. And there are claims by the parties: the safety of the automated driver, the rapid reuse of a rocket, the lunar city. We think it is legitimate for an entrepreneur to set ambitious goals, but not for the press to treat them as results. We distrust figures that live in a single statement, and we value regulators and competitors who keep looking at the same data with different eyes. As these companies grow more entwined, every announcement deserves a prior question: who measured it?
Byline, Chief editor · English editionEverything we published on this topic
19 stories from Aug 2025 to Jul 2026, by month. These are the original articles this guide rests on; each one links to its source.
