Tesla Space #74: No, Tesla Board is not searching for a new CEO

X OF THE WEEK

I think I missed something on X while I was away because suddenly there’s this @gork account that seems to be the unhinged and very specific attitude version of @grok, Elon is now the “gorklon rust”, changed his profile picture to replicate @grok’s and keeps engaging with it.

Still not sure if it’s an official xAI account or not, but I kind of feel like I’m one of those non-Internet people who don’t get what’s going on in the Internet culture. 🤷‍♂️ 

$TSLA

… is down -1.97% since our last week’s newsletter (Monday’s close), now at $280.26 per share right as I send you this before the market open. Tesla is now at $878,19B market cap.

There’s more in this section visible for Tesla Space Insiders, including Elon talking of cumulative free cash flow and us finding the chart about it. Join us to unlock this section.

TESLA, GLOBALLY

FUD busting — Tesla Board is not looking to replace Elon

This might be one of those occasions where you’ll see your distant uncle in six months and they’ll say “oh I heard Tesla wants to replace Elon”.

This isn’t the truth, but the fixes to these headlines rarely make it to people as fast and wide as the initial headlines do.

WSJ pulled another one of their stunts and reported that the Tesla Board is looking for a new CEO. All while Tesla Board and Robyn Denholm themselves deny it, saying they said so to WSJ before the report aired as well but the piece still went out. 

Here’s Tesla official account confirming:

And here’s Elon quote post on this:

“It is an EXTREMELY BAD BREACH OF ETHICS that the WSJ would publish a DELIBERATELY FALSE ARTICLE and fail to include an unequivocal denial beforehand by the Tesla board of directors!”

So there you have it, something for when you meet that uncle… who won’t believe you anyway and or will just repeat some other WSJ headline that is definitely totally correct this time regardless, right?

Lara Trump (yes, that’s his daughter-in-law or something) interviewed Elon in her “My View” show (6-minute video 📹️ ), including some of the Tesla team and toured the Giga Texas (another 6-minute video 📹️ ), airing it on Fox News. I didn’t even know Giga Texas literally has street signs inside the factory because it's so large!

Here’s the video interview 📹️ with the team members we haven’t seen take spotlight so far — John Nelson (Model Y Production Manager) Ryan Martinak (Director of Operations), and Leigh Suggs (Cybertruck Engineering Manager). Topics cover stuff like recent Tesla attacks, the culture, etc.

Quick takes:

• Tesla's India office refunds early Model 3 reservation holders saying “We would like to return your reservation fee for the time being. When we finalize our offerings in India, we will reach out in the market again. We hope to see you back with us once we are ready to launch and deliver in your country.”
  
  While it looks the opposite of a market entry, I do think this might be just to let go of those ~2016 reservations to the Model 3 versions that don’t really exist anymore, ahead of entry with fresh models.

• Tesla, in their obvious attempt to take my job, posted a monthly recap “April at Tesla” on X.

• Brian had some very crappy Tesla service experience in Sarasota with Tesla not sticking to the promised scheduled times for a minor repair, even Elon replies 'investigating' on post. It turned out the boss of the service center was away helping to open a service center in Puerto Rico — Tesla got the thing escalated and done in time and Brian back on the road when needed. I find it important to share these stories, and hope we don’t have to escalate these through social media to actually get things working.

• Tesla is now texting early Model Y owners offering the $2,000 Model Y Loyalty Incentive to switch to the New MY.

VEHICLES

Watch tip: Dan Priestley gave a presentation about Tesla Semi progress at the ACT Expo 2025, here’s a video 📹️ from Kyle and Out of Spec. Not too many nuggets if you watched the presentation I filmed at Germany’s IAA event in September.

The Tesla Semi fleet has cumulatively traveled 7.9 million miles by now. This includes 26 vehicles with over 100,000 miles on them. Tesla has 46 Megawatt-level sites under construction for public Semi charging.

Dan did reveal that the Semi will equip a 25-kW electric Power Take-Off (e-PTO) system that will help companies power auxiliary features like refrigeration, hydraulic systems, compressors, and more.

📹️ Here’s an (unlisted) 6-minute video from Electrek on their Tesla Semi ride-along from ACT.

Meanwhile, Business Insider reports Tesla has hired over 1,000 factory workers in Nevada for its Semi program — and we’ve seen at least 83 jobs pop up on Tesla’s careers page.

And Elon recently (finally) mentioning Tesla Semi on FSD on the Q1 call might not be a coincidence either — a new proposal from California DMV would allow initial testing of self-driving heavy-duty trucks.

Tesla has released the “Acceleration Boost” paid software upgrade for the New Model Y — it adds about 100hp and reduces 0-60s time from 4.6s to 4.2s (making it roughly the same as the Launch Series version was).

Quick takes:

• There are rumors from China of a Model Y “E80” variant, with a smaller battery and less specs while also priced lower than the current trims — but I won’t comment yet until we have something more tangible. Also, there are these weird unfinished but different sized vehicles popping up on Tesla Fremont flyovers…

• Now, both front and rear gigacastings of the Cybercab seem to be revealed from the drone flyovers:

• 🇳🇴 The Tesla Model Y has become the most common car on Norwegian roads — with over 70,000 total registrations, it beats the Toyota Rav4, Nissan Leaf and others.

• The New Model Y holds up quite well… this one got hit by a truck at high speed - here’s the Tesla’s Sentry video 📹️ .

  

FSD & SOFTWARE

Tesla doubling down on June robotaxi start absolutely everywhere. Including this official post on X with asking Grok “How long until June?”

This seems to be the most sure date the Tesla team has been about for a looooong while. I think they might have a surprise or two in store for us there.

It’s also interesting to see that when our friend Kees reported that Czechia signed a new law on autonomous vehicles, effectively allowing FSD (Supervised) in Europe from Jan 2026, Elon replied “cool”.

This thread 📹️ started by the Tesla X account is full of wild FSD examples, they asked to “Comment with a video of a moment in which FSD Supervised blew your mind.”

An owner in China is driving 4,000km to the Mt. Everest base camp, livestreaming, on FSD. 📹️ See his account for latest. By the way, already in April 2021, Tesla China announced that it has completed the buildout of 11 Supercharger stations in the picturesque route from Chengdu to Tingri — the road to reach the base camp of Mt. Everest.

Quite the caption: “At an altitude of 4,600 meters, this may be the highest place FSD has reached, with passengers needing occasional oxygen intake.”

Tesla put up Q1 2025 Safety report details:

In Q1, they recorded one crash for every 7.44 million miles driven in which drivers were using Autopilot technology. For drivers who were not using Autopilot technology, Tesla recorded one crash for every 1.51 million miles driven. By comparison, the most recent data available from NHTSA and FHWA (from 2023) shows that in the US there was an automobile crash approximately every 702,000 miles.

SUPERCHARGING

I find these posts show exactly how much Tesla’s Supercharging team is about the mission of accelerating sustainable transport, not just deploying to compete:

Fun note — Max even answered “💯” to my post where I wrote “The only (true) way to go about the mission. Any CPO pushing for exclusivity should be called out for hindering the mission they are supposed to fight for.”

Tesla says the Supercharger network offsets 11.6B lbs/5.3B kg of C02 annually, and growing quickly. You contribute with each Supercharging session.

Looks like Kia America has a different stance than those Nordic distributors who were throwing shade on Elon in their marketing campaign a bit back. After announcing Kia drivers now get access to Superchargers across the US, it wrote in the press release:

“Tesla Superchargers are critical infrastructure, and Kia America condemns the recent attacks that disrupt the availability of convenient and affordable charging for our customers.

Kia America is aware of marketing posts by certain Nordic distributors. These initiatives were developed entirely independently by those distributors, without direction from Kia America, Kia Europe or Kia Global. We want it to be clear that these posts do not reflect the position of Kia America, and we remain committed to clear and professional communication that reflects our values.”

Elon replied on X: “❤️”

Quick takes:

• This guy Ron converted a vintage Texaco gas pump into a cool Tesla home charger, here’s his thread with all the details on how he did it.

MUSKONOMY

SpaceX & Starlink

If you heard about the major grid blackout in Spain, Portugal and part of France — check this out:

Elon comments: “Starlink still worked in Spain and Portugal when the whole countries lost power! Worth having Starlink as backup, even if you have a gigabit landline.”

Starbase, Texas will now officially become a city! 🥳 

The incorporation vote, of course with three of five people that live there are SpaceX employees, was approved 212-6. They incorporated a 1.6-square-mile patch of Cameron County, Texas, as the municipality of Starbase. The new Starbase city is led by Mayor Bobby Peden, SpaceX’s vice president of Texas test and launch operations. Starbase City also has two commissioners with ties to SpaceX, who will oversee planning, taxation, and local governance.

Now that’s quite a unique city we’ve got there… Starbase, the Gateway to Mars:

DOGE

Per the White House Chief of Staff, Elon Musk is no longer working from the West Wing — he is still working for/with DOGE, but remote.

He’s not out of it altogether. He’s just not physically present as much as he was. The people that are doing this work are here doing good things and paying attention to the details. He’ll be stepping back a little, but he’s certainly not abandoning it. And his people are definitely not,” Wiles stated.

Neuralink

Neuralink’s brain-computer interface (BCI) device, Link, has secured the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) “breakthrough” designation for restoring communication in patients with severe speech impairment.

The Link device targets ”those affected by ALS, stroke, spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, and other neurological conditions”.