When you see them for the first time, you may wonder if the alien invasion of earth has begun.

A series of bright lights in the deep night sky moving together with a single purpose.

If the conditions are clear, its quite the sight and if you dont know what they are, the mind can be boggled.

They are in fact SpaceX Starlink satellites the latest batch of which have recently launched in the United States.

They belong to billionaire Elon Musk and are aiming to provide accessible internet to everyone on the planet even in the most remote parts.

The video at the top of this article was taken by James Lowe on Wednesday at around 5.51am in Gloucester Park on a mobile phone and he kindly shared it with Gloucestershire Live.

When watching the video, you need to look out for a train of lights moving from the bottom right to top left.

The camera does move around a bit as James tries to get the best view, despite the impact of moonlight.

You can see James' YouTube channel here

The train of lights have been mistaken for meteors, Father Christmas sleigh and, inevitably, aliens.

The satellites have caused some controversy over their impact on the night sky, and there are efforts to make them less visible.

According to Findastarlink.com, you can see the satellites over Gloucester at 6.12am on Thursday; 6.35am on Friday; 5.23am on Saturday and 5.46am on Sunday.

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Starlink provides internet access through a constellation of small satellites, and you can learn more about them in the video above.

According to SpaceNews, SpaceX completed the launch of its fourth batch of Starlink satellites at the end of January.

And they have have caused mystery in Gloucestershire already.

The above image was taken near RAF Fairford and shows several bright lights in the sky early Tuesday, February 4.

Chris Prevett wrote on a Facebook group after going for a run near the base: "A strange one for you, any idea what these are?

"Out for an early morning run - a group of around 11 objects travelling across the sky at 0524, this is along Whelford Road with my back to the base, all travelling at the same speed, no discernible noise..nothing on flight radar.

"Picture taken with an iPhone 11, so quality is not brilliant..."

His appeal for information was quickly answered - they were the SpaceX satellites.

There have been a similar spate of sightings elsewhere in the UK.

It prompted The East Anglian Astrophysical Research Organisation to tweet: "If you see these over the UK they are NOT UFOs but satellites that are part of the Space-X Starlink project to provide accessible internet to everyone."

If you've taken any videos or pictures of the satellites, we'd love to see them. Contact us at gloslivenews@glosmedia.co.uk or via our social media channels.

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Watch Elon Musk's convoy of satellites orbiting over Gloucestershire and when you can see them next - Gloucestershire Live

Elon Musk, as always, has come heads up with the Crew Dragon spacecraft likely to be launched by May 7th. Even then, you can still expect some changes in the prescribed dates. It can be moved forward or backward based on the mission progress.

The spacecraft has successfully completed the pre-requirements for a manned program, the IFA. IFA is nothing but a successful in-flight abort test, and it was performed in January. SpaceXs next mission, Demo 2, will be accompanied by two crew members from crew partner NASA.

Eric Berger from Art Technica has already leaked that SpaceX is working on May 7th as a timeline but also cautioned about the unforeseen delays or preponed launch subject to completion. A Huge thanks to SpaceX for making space travel affordable and easier with the reusable rockets. After successful attempts by unmanned rockets, SpaceX is finally testing its manned Spacecraft.

Demo 2 will be the second demo, with the first one Demo 1 - an unscrewed mission that was tested in March 2019. That mission was a success, without any crew members in it, as the Dragon Capsule flew to the International Space Station. It had made a successful dock and undock. Then, with its controlled landing system, it returned back to earth.

Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken are the two crew members from NASA who are going to be aboard the Demo 2. And this will be the crews third spaceflight. Both Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken will at least till the International Space Station aboard the Crew Dragon. The minimal this mission will follow is the repetition of Demo-1, but one huge difference is, there will crew aboard the spacecraft this time.

As per NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine, they are already looking for possibilities of extending the stay to more than two weeks. This will help them to rotate the crew of the International Space Station. It will be similar to what is happening with Soyuz astronaut flights.

The Government Accountability Office released a report last week saying the Demo-2 capsule that will fly the astronauts was on track, but it was supposed to be completed three months earlier. But as always, there will be movement in the timeline regarding the space missions. But let us sit tight and see if Elon delivers this time.

Link:

Elon Musk's Manned Space flight is to Be Launched around May 7 - News Bricks

Facebook receives plenty of pointed criticism from numerous corners, including for refusing to police political speech on Facebook, its seemingly endless string of privacy breaches, and its apparent coziness of late with the Trump administration.

One of the platforms most prominent critics, somewhat unexpectedly, has become comic, writer, and actor Sacha Baron Cohen. Indeed, his powerful speech to the Anti-Defamation League in November, characterizing Facebook as the greatest propaganda machine in history, quickly went viral. (We republished it here.)

Cohen isnt done railing against Zuckerberg, however. Last Wednesday, he tweeted in frustration, We dont let 1 person control the water for 2.5 billion people. We dont let 1 person control electricity for 2.5 billion people. Why do we let 1 man control the information seen by 2.5 billion people? Facebook needs to be regulated by governments, not ruled by an emperor!

On Saturday morning, Tesla founder Elon Musk responded to Cohen, himself tweeting #DeleteFacebook its lame.

It was short, sweet, and to the point (and presumably buoyed Cohen).

One might imagine that Musk, who has always spoken his mind, has been emboldened of late thanks to the skyrocketing value of Tesla. But Musk has long been a critic of Facebook, tweeting in 2018 after deleting his companies Facebook pages that he doesnt like Facebook. Gives me the willies. Sorry.

Musk and Zuckerberg have butted heads in the past over the future of artificial intelligence, too. In 2014, Musk reportedly met with Zuckerberg, researchers from Facebooks then-new AI lab, and two other Facebook executives at Zuckerbergs Palo Alto home in an effort to convince Musk that he was wrong about the potential dangers of AI. Musk wasnt persuaded, and he didnt change his mind, calling Zuckerbergs understanding of the future of AI limited in 2017.

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Elon Musk tweets out #DeleteFacebook, adding simply, its lame - TechCrunch

Elon Musks SpaceX satellite broadband service has taken its first step into the Australian market. The communications regulator has added the company to a list of satellite operators allowed over Australian airspace.

But Foxtel has raised concerns the service might conflict with its subscription TV service.

The SpaceX Starlink currently has 242 satellites deployed above earth, which it plans to expand to a constellation of 7,518 low-earth orbit satellites.

The company launched 60 satellites into space last month, and plans to launch around 60 per fortnight in 2020.

It is aiming to have services operating in northern parts of the US and in Canada in 2020, and then near-global coverage of the populated world by 2021.

Late last month, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (Acma) added SpaceX and two other companies to the Radiocommunications (Foreign Space Objects) Determination that governs what satellite companies can operate in Australia.

Much remains a mystery about what Starlinks internet services will be like in reality. In a November 2016 filing with the US federal communications commission (FCC), SpaceX said it would be able to offer speeds of up to 1 gigabit per second for users, at low cost.

SpaceX being added to the list of satellite operators in Australia is the first stage in the regulatory process. The company still needs to obtain more regulatory approvals, and eventually a licence to use spectrum for the satellites to communicate.

That licence is likely to be a matter of contention. Australias subscription television company has indicated it could potentially be in conflict with its own satellite TV service.

In a submission to the Acmas proposal, News Corp-owned TV service Foxtel said it had very high levels of concern about potential interference of its service to satellite customers if SpaceX and another company, Kepler, are allowed to use the same Ku frequency band that Foxtel operates in.

Given the potential catastrophic business impact of interference, the need to protect existing [geostationary orbit] systems from these new [non-geostationary orbit] constellations must be a priority for the Acma going forward.

In its submission to the FCC, SpaceX said it would have flexibility to share that spectrum with other licensed satellite and terrestrial users.

The difficulty facing SpaceX is that customers will need to buy antennas to connect to the satellites, and some have questioned whether that would be affordable for most, or whether it would be commercially viable, given the project would not only compete with other satellite operators but 5G networks and fixed-line internet providers.

Musk has said they will be about the size of a pizza box, easy to install, and simple to use, and between US$100 ($149) and US$300 ($447). But one analyst, Tim Farrar, has suggested it could cost US$1,000 ($1,488) alone.

In Australia, the biggest competitor would be the government-owned NBN Cos two satellites, currently servicing over 96,000 homes and businesses in regional and rural Australia. The speeds offered on NBNs satellites are significantly less than that promised on Starlink.

The NBN satellites are currently five years into their fifteen-year lifespan. The company has flagged it will need to start considering options in five years for how to replace the satellites and has suggested it could consider a SpaceX-style system in the future.

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Elon Musk's SpaceX clears first hurdle to Australian broadband market - The Guardian

Elon Musk has raised concerns about the "dire problem" of cryptocurrency scams on Twitter.

The Tesla CEO has been consistently targeted by scammers in recent years, who use fake accounts toimpersonate him and trick people into sending them cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.

Scams typically involve fake accounts holding "giveaways", which require people to send cryptocurrency to a digital address in order to receive a greater amount in return.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Analysis byThe Independentin 2018 found that more than 400 people sent thousands of dollars worth of cryptocurrency to scammers, however Musk claims the problem is even worse now.

"The crypto scam level on Twitter is reaching new levels. This is not cool," he tweeted to his 31 million followers. "Troll/ bot networks on Twitter are a dire problem for adversely affecting public discourse and ripping people off."

On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'

Reuters

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices

Lazlo Hanyecz

Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin

On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash

REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis

The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed

Getty Images

In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim

Getty Images

On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash

REUTERS

Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year

Reuters

On 3 January, 2009, the genesis block of bitcoin appeared. It came less than a year after the pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto detailed the cryptocurrency in a paper titled 'Bitcoin: A peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System'

Reuters

On 22 May, 2010, the first ever real-world bitcoin transaction took place. Lazlo Hanyecz bought two pizzas for 10,000 bitcoins the equivalent of $90 million at today's prices

Lazlo Hanyecz

Bitcoin soon gained notoriety for its use on the dark web. The Silk Road marketplace, established in 2011, was the first of hundreds of sites to offer illegal drugs and services in exchange for bitcoin

On 29 October, 2013, the first ever bitcoin ATM was installed in a coffee shop in Vancouver, Canada. The machine allowed people to exchange bitcoins for cash

REUTERS/Dimitris Michalakis

The world's biggest bitcoin exchange, MtGox, filed for bankruptcy in February 2014 after losing almost 750,000 of its customers bitcoins. At the time, this was around 7 per cent of all bitcoins and the market inevitably crashed

Getty Images

In 2015, Australian police raided the home of Craig Wright after the entrepreneur claimed he was Satoshi Nakamoto. He later rescinded the claim

Getty Images

On 1 August, 2017, an unresolvable dispute within the bitcoin community saw the network split. The fork of bitcoin's underlying blockchain technology spawned a new cryptocurrency: Bitcoin cash

REUTERS

Towards the end of 2017, the price of bitcoin surged to almost $20,000. This represented a 1,300 per cent increase from its price at the start of the year

Reuters

He urged followers to report any suspicious activity as soon as they see it in order to prevent people from falling for the scams.

Twitter could also take lessons from Google, he suggested, by dropping the prominence of malicious accounts.

"Trolls/ bots just need to be deemphasized relative to probably real people who aren't being paid to push an agenda or scam," he wrote. "Google still shows bs/ scam pages, they're just several clicks away."

The issue was raised at a recent employee conference at Twitter, when Elon Musk appeared via video link to respond to Jack Dorsey'squestion about how to improve the platform.

Musk said it would be helpful to differentiate between real and fake users in order to protect the integrity of Twitter and restore trust in its users.

"Basically, how do you tell if the feedback is real or someone trying to manipulate the system, or probably real, or probably trying to manipulate the system," he said.

"What do people actually want, what are people actually upset about versus manipulation of the system by various interest groups."

Musk is not the only high-profile Twitter user to be targeted by such scams, with many figures within the cryptocurrency community also impersonated.

The founder of ethereum, VitalikButerin, has consistently called on Twitter to come up with a solution, as well as cryptocurrency advocate John McAfee.

Twitter has rules in place to prevent its users from being impersonated and claims to have cracked down on scams by implementing various tools.

"We're constantly adapting to bad actors evolving methods, and have made improvements in combating cryptocurrency scams on the platform," a spokesperson toldThe Independent.

"If we see content that is violative of our Financial Scams Policy we take action. We will continue to iterate and improve upon this policy and the industry evolves."

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This is not cool: Elon Musk attacks Twitter over impersonators scamming bitcoin from followers - The Independent

If theres anything that Elon Musk loves more than sticking it to those mean awful short sellers in the most spectacular way possible, its, uh, no, wait, forget it, theres nothing he likes better. Or even comes close. But if theres something thats definitely his second-favorite thing, its not definitely not actually delivering cars to customers ahead of schedule rather than years behind. No, its beating David Solomon to the top of the EDM charts.

I dont hate myself enough to listen to Dont Doubt ur Vibe, but if youd like to help Elon outpace Roddy Ricch and some other people Ive never heard of, and also make David Einhorns year a little worse, Id welcome some reviews in the comments. Especially from you, Mr. President.

Elon Musk took a victory lap after his weird EDM song broke the top 10 on SoundCloud [BI]

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What Cant Elon Musk Do? (Other Than Routinely Make Enough Cars) - Dealbreaker

Thanks in large part to Tesla, Elon Musk is an icon and a very rich man the company's market cap reached $100 billion for the first time on Jan. 22 and its stock surged Thursday after reporting higher than expected earnings for the fourth-quarter. If Tesla continues to hit stock milestones, Musk could earn an enormous compensation package, including options worth more than $55 billion.

But in the beginning, "I really didn't want to be CEO" of Tesla, Musk said in a recent episode of the Third Row Tesla podcast.

In fact, Musk had a very different idea on how he'd spend his time with the company.

In 2003, a 32-year-old Musk (who had recently become a millionaire thanks to two successful start-up sales) was inspired to build an entirely electric sports cars after test driving an electric car model called the tzero, he recalled in the podcast.

"[The first tzero model] literally didn't have doors or a roof, or any airbags or an effective cooling system. It was not safe or reliable," he said.

According to Musk, the model's maker, AC Propulsion, had no interest in bringing the tzero to market, but he felt strongly it could work. So Musk asked AC Propulsion founder Alan Cocconi and CEO Tom Gage if he could commercialize the tzero, he says. They agreed, according to Musk.

At the time, only hybrid electric vehicles (with both gas and electric motors on board) had hit the U.S. market: Honda released its Insight in 1999, and Toyota released the Prius in 2000.

The only problem with starting an electric car company was that Musk had founded aerospace company SpaceX just a year earlier and didn't want to take on another start-up. At SpaceX, he was already working 80 hours a week and he wanted to avoid working 160 hours a week, according to the podcast.

So AC Propulsion CEO Gage suggested Musk speak with electric car start-up Tesla Motors, which was also looking to commercialize the tzero. Musk reasoned that by teaming up with another company, he could "have my cake and eat it too," he said on the podcast he could still run SpaceX but also pursue his passion for electric cars in his spare time.

"I didn't think it would be easy, but I thought maybe I could allocate 20 to 30 hours a week and just work on product engineering, and then other people could do the other stuff. I didn't like doing the other stuff anyway," Musk said.

"But that didn't work out."

With money Musk earned as a co-founder of PayPal, which eBay bought for $1.5 billion in 2002, Musk invested $6.3 million in start-up Tesla Motors in 2004, according to Wired.

The company had five co-founders: Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, who started the original Tesla Motors in 2003, as well as Ian Wright, JB Straubel and Musk.

But according to Musk, there was "a lot of drama" around naming a CEO.

"They made me choose who was going to be CEO, because I really didn't want to be CEO," Musk said on the podcast. "[I] was trying to make this rocket company work."

According to Musk, he chose "lesser of evils, between Eberhard and Wright." Musk said that he ultimately picked Eberhard, with the help of Straubel and Tarpenning.

Eberhard and Wright, however remember things differently.

"That's not really how it was," Wright told CNBC Make It. "Martin was already the CEO" of Tesla when they met Musk, he said.

"There was no discussion about anyone other than Martin being the CEO," Wright said. According to him, Musk said he would be chairman of the board.

Eberhard also disagreed with Musk's account. "I was the CEO," he told CNBC Make It, and Musk was on the board of directors.

Whatever the case, Wright left Tesla in 2004. (Wright says he left while Eberhard says he was fired).

Between 2004 and 2007 the Tesla team worked on its first release, the Tesla Roadster, while also searching for investors. According to Musk, with Eberhard as CEO, they got off to a rough start.

Early Tesla experienced hurdles, including a faulty prototype, Musk said on the podcast.

"[We] really just jammed" electric car parts into a Lotus Elise, Musk said of the first prototype. (Sports car manufacturer Lotus allowed Tesla to manufacture and test Roadsters at its factory in England.)

"In retrospect, this wasn't a good idea," Musk said on the podcast. "The car ending up weighing like 60% more than an Elise.we went through a lot of trouble trying to shoehorn everything in there. The costs ended up being crazy."

Still, production of the Roadster was set to begin in September 2007, according to Wired, and was priced at $109,000. However, that summer an internal audit revealed that production costs would actually be $140,000 per vehicle, Wired reported. Musk blamed Eberhard.

"We obviously had to fire Eberhard. There was no choice about that," Musk said on the podcast. "It was pretty bad."

"The story about the 2007 audit is not true and is slanderous," Eberhard told CNBC Make It. (Eberhard sued Musk and Tesla in 2009 for libel and slander, alleging he was forced out of the company. He later dropped the suit.)

After Eberhard came an interim CEO, Michael Marks. Then Ze'ev Drori came on as CEO and launched the Roadster in 2008, with its six-figure price tag.

Musk finally stepped in as CEO in October 2008 after deciding to invest more of his personal fortune into the company. In the end, it was too hard to find a qualified CEO since Tesla was not a typical gas vehicle company and had the culture of start-up, Musk and his brother, Kimbal Musk, a Tesla investor, said on the podcast.

Production of the Roadster started in 2009 and Tesla Motors went public in June 2010.

Even as a public company the road was bumpy, but today Tesla, Inc. (Musk changed the name in 2017) has six models of vehicles, including the new Cybertruck. (And Musk recently mentioned the idea of a minivan.) Tesla also sells home solar energy products.

Along the way, Musk and Tesla have been both lauded and criticized: Musk is often dinged for over-promising and production delays, most recently for the Model 3. And the stock hit a three-year low in June. That's not to mention his troubles with Securities and Exchange Commission (which were settled) and the recent libel suit (which he won).

But things seem to have turned around for Musk, at least for now Tesla's stock hit an all time high after it began production of the Model Y in its new Shanghai factory. As a result, Tesla became the first publicly listed U.S. carmaker to hit the $100 billion mark.

Today, Musk is worth nearly $35 billion, according to Forbes and owns about 20% of Tesla. (SpaceX is valued at about $33 billion as of May, according to CNBC.)

Of course, Tesla's success has come with the kind of schedule Musk was originally trying to avoid. As recently as 2018, Musk told Leslie Stahl on CBS' "60 Minutes" that he had been working 120 hours a week on Tesla after experiencing Model 3 production problems.

"Tesla was a company you tried so hard not to be CEO of," Kimbal Musk said in the Third Row Tesla podcast.

"Yes," said Musk. "This will be misinterpreted as somehow I don't love Tesla, which I do. It's just like, I was trying not to go insane. I mean [the] pain level is extreme."

Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube!

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Elon Musk: 'I really didn't want to be CEO of Tesla' - CNBC

Elon Musk hasn't become a household name by chance. The founder and CEO of SpaceX, CEO of Tesla, and co-founder of Neuralink (to name just a few of his ventures) is clearly unafraid of hard work, and he knows what it takes to go from innovative idea toundeniable success.

The most surprising ingredient? Failure.

For a serial entrepreneur and one of the globe's richest people, Musk demonstrates a healthy amount of humility. In an interview at an energy conference in Norway, he offers a piece of advice to anyone looking to start a business:

You should take the approach that you're wrong. Your goal is to be less wrong.

The benefit of being wrong

By "wrong," Musk isn't saying that you should assume your business idea is a bad one. Instead, he's highlighting the importance of a growth mindset in a characteristically succinct and memorable way.

You obviously believe in your idea if you're willing to put in the work needed to try and make it a reality, but Musk's words are a caution against letting that belief and optimism cloud your ability to think objectively and look for improvement.

As Musk points out, "When you first start a company, there's lots of optimism and things are great. Happiness, at first, is high. Then, you encounter all sorts of issues and happiness will steadily decline and you'll go through a whole world of hurt."

By adopting a growth mindset and assuming "you're wrong" from the start, you'll be able to spot impending issues earlier and minimize the inevitable pain and suffering Musk describes.

There are lots of strategies out there to encourage the adoption of a growth mindset, but these are the ones that Musk himself relies on.

1. Seize the opportunity to be better than the rest.

When Musk sought to land a miniature greenhouse on Mars as part of the Mars Oasis project, he went to Russia to shop for refurbished intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). When quoted a price of $8 million per rocket, he reasoned that it was possible to make more affordable rockets by starting his own company. As he points out, "If you're entering an existing marketplace against large, entrenched competitors, your product or service needs to be much better than theirs." The secret sauce of SpaceX? Making major rocket components reusable to lower the price.

2.Seek out criticism.

Musk takes the quest for criticism seriously because he thinks that few things are more important for a successful business. As he explains, "A well thought out critique of whatever you're doing is as valuable as gold. You should seek that from everyone you can but particularly your friends. Usually, your friends know what's wrong, but they don't want to tell you because they don't want to hurt you." Instead of relying on them to offer their advice, actively seek it out.

3.Surround yourself with the best.

In addition to his bachelor's degrees in economics and physics, Musk has additional experience in a wide variety of fields. Despite all this knowledge, he's still aware that he doesn't have all the answers, and he gets advice from the people around him regularly. Even if you don't agree with their input, Musk advises that "you at least want to listen very carefully to what they say."

To an outsider, it might appear that Musk has the Midas touch, but the technology entrepreneur has no such false notion. Instead, he recognizes that there are no guarantees, and he readily admits that "Tesla almost didn't succeed. It came very close to failure."

While he's very candid about the pain of starting a business, he also acknowledges the light at the end of the tunnel. "Eventually, if you succeed ... you will finally get back to happiness."

Published on: Jan 24, 2020

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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Elon Musk Says Adopting These 3 Simple Steps Has Helped Produce His Success - Inc.

Elon Musk revealed he has big ideas for an electric plane back in 2018. He told Joe Rogan in a wide ranging interview on Rogans podcast. When Rogan asked:

Have you ever looked at planes and gone, I could fix this?

The engineer and Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX CEO answered:

I have a design for a plane

He went on to describe his plan for a vertical take off and landing (VTOL), high altitude, supersonic jet. Of course Elon Musks airplane would be powered by electric battery, not jet fueled gas-turbines. But Musk said it isnt necessary right now.

But now its necessary.

The U.S. needs someone who knows what theyre doing to save American airplane manufacturing. After its best decade in history, Boeing is tangled in a devastating crisis.

The 737 Max remains grounded after two new planes crashed within five months resulting in 346 deaths. The company halted Max production in December.

Boeing executives are now telling customers the 737 Max will remain grounded until June or July. That will be 16 months on the ground since aviation authorities banned the airliner from flying. Boeing has had to compensate the families of the victims and settle for financial damages to American and Southwest airlines.

Both the airplane manufacturer and its biggest supplier have had their credit ratings downgraded by Moodys. A Bank of America analyst estimates the total cost of the Max crisis to reach $20 billion. Boeing recorded a negative number of commercial airplane sales in 2019 because of cancellations. Analysts expect Boeings fourth quarter earnings to be an absolute disaster. Boeing stock has plummeted 28% since its March 2019 peak.

Boeing faces severe challenges.

But working with Elon Musk would give the company a much-needed confidence boost. And he could help Boeing create one of its safest and most exciting products ever while moving the world closer to a sustainable, zero-carbon economy.

He turned around Tesla in less than a year. Musk took his car company back from the edge in May 2019 to a $100 billion market cap this month.

Boeings new CEO Dave Calhoun told reporters on a conference call Wednesday that hes scrapping current plans for a key jetliner. The company is going to start over designing its 797 New Midsize Airplane (NMA):

Were going to start with a clean sheet of paper again; Im looking forward to that.

Hand that sheet of paper to Elon Musk.

He has a stellar record of making safe, cost-saving, environmentally friendly products. And theyre fun and exciting to boot, some flair the airline industry could use.

In September, the Tesla Model 3 won the Insurance Institute for Highway Safetys 2019 Top Safety Pick+ award. And the U.S. government rates Teslas cars the safest out of any vehicle on the road:

The Model 3 is the safest car ever tested by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), whose testing procedures determined Teslas newest car has the lowest probability of injury in a collision of any of the over 900 cars NHTSA has tested. In second place is Model S, and in third you guessed it Model X.

An electric Boeing airplane would also cut costs for its customers and reduce the worlds dependence on fossil fuels. Elon Musk saves consumers who buy Teslas thousands of dollars on fuel. His electric cars also save money on lower-cost maintenance. Thats because theyre simpler and have fewer moving parts.

Musk has an epic track record of cost savings in aerospace too, not just on the road. He fundamentally transformed the space economy by cutting rocket launch costs from $18,500 per kilogram to $2,720 per kilogram with the SpaceX Falcon 9. An Elon Musk designed, all-electric airliner is what Boeing needs to get off the ground again.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com. The above should not be considered trading advicefrom CCN.com.

This article was edited by Gerelyn Terzo.

Last modified: January 24, 2020 2:37 AM UTC

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Could Elon Musk Be the One to Save Boeing? - CCN.com

EDITOR'S NOTE:This article comes to us courtesy ofEVANNEX, which makes and sells aftermarket Tesla accessories. The opinions expressed therein are not necessarily our own at InsideEVs, nor have we been paid byEVANNEXto publish these articles. We find the company's perspective as an aftermarket supplier of Tesla accessories interesting and are happy to share its content free of charge. Enjoy!

Epic fail. That's what firstcrossed my mind as I watched the window break (twice!) duringTesla's Cybertruck launch. Instead, the unfortunate incident brought immediate worldwide attention to Tesla's new truck mainstream press, social media, and (of course) meme makers all gobbled it up. Fast forward, and Elon Musk's crazy concept for the Cybertruck is now consideredgenius.

In fact, Elon Musk actuallyforecasts failure at thebeginning of his bold and audacious ventures. According to Marcel Schwantes (viaInc.), Musk demonstrates "a healthy amount of humility" when starting a project. For example, at an interview at an energy conference in Norway,Musksaid, "You should take the approach that you're wrong. Your goal is to be less wrong."

As Musk points out, "When you first start a company, there's lots of optimism and things are great. Happiness, at first, is high. Then, you encounter all sorts of issues and happiness will steadily decline and you'll go through a whole world of hurt." But, ifyou take your medicine and learn from your failures, there's an upside. "Eventually, if you succeed... You will finally get back to happiness," says Musk.

Above: Accepting the likelihood of failure is an intrinsic part of risk-taking according to Musk (YouTube:Elon Musk Sound Bites)

By acknowledging that failure is a likely outcome,Schwantes says, "you'll be able to spot impending issues earlier and minimize the inevitable pain and suffering Musk describes." In fact, Musk has atrick for keeping himabreast of potential pitfalls. He actively seeks out constructive criticism from close friends and confidants.

"A well thought out critique of whatever you're doing is as valuable as gold. You should seek that from everyone you can but particularly your friends. Usually, your friends know what's wrong, but they don't want to tell you because they don't want to hurt you," says Musk. Even if you don't agree with their feedback, Musksays, "You at least want to listen very carefully to what they say."

In short, Muskbelieves failure isnecessaryon the path of success. Hesays, "Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough."It's something Elon Musk accepts and embraces. Don't believe me? Check out thisrevealing infographicof Musk's many failures as he built Paypal, Tesla, and SpaceX into the trailblazing companies they are today.

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Source:Inc.

EDITOR'S NOTE:This article comes to us courtesy ofEVANNEX, which makes and sells aftermarket Tesla accessories. The opinions expressed therein are not necessarily our own at InsideEVs, nor have we been paid byEVANNEXto publish these articles. We find the company's perspective as an aftermarket supplier of Tesla accessories interesting and are happy to share its content free of charge. Enjoy!

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Tesla's Elon Musk Must Fail To Win: It's A Critical Part Of The Process - InsideEVs

Elon Musk has spoken of the exponential ramp-up of its solar glass tile at the Buffalo factory. But pv magazine has found indications that the solar tile product is coming from a Chinese source.

According to Tesla CEO Elon Musks numerous testimonials, it seems pretty clear that the solar roof is being built in Buffalo.

But pv magazine has found evidence that the solar roof tile is coming from China, not Buffalo.

Bullish on building in Buffalo

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been bullish about solar roof production in Teslas factory in Buffalo, New York.

In October of last year, Musk said, Tesla expects to be producing about 1,000 solar roofs per week in Buffalo within a few months, adding, We will grow this exponentially. It might be doubling this every month.

This is all going to be produced at the Giga New York, our factory in Buffalo, where people have been working really hard. And Id just like to say it, our appreciation for the team there. Theyve really been putting in a pretty huge effort to ramp-up production of the solar glass roof.

Well definitely make New York proud about that factory, Musk said during that conference call. Its going to be great.

Were ramping up as fast as we possibly can, starting in the next few weeks, Musk said, at the time, adding, Its really primarily just for the solar glass roof. Thats what our Buffalo factory will focus on.

But the box says Changzou

pv magazine has been hunting down these innovative and beautiful integrated solar roofs and documenting the progress of these installations. Heres our most recent photo gallery of solar roof installs.

However, while photographing day 6 of this roof installation in Northern California:

We noticed these boxes full of solar glass roof tiles:

And the labels read:

Based on that label, one might conclude that these boxes of solar roof tiles were coming from Changzou Almaden Co. on Qinglong East Road in Changzou, Jiangzhou, China 7,135 miles from Buffalo, New York.

A recent Wall Street Journal article called Changzhou Almaden a supplier of solar glass to Tesla with a stock price that has more than doubled in the past month.

Theres nothing wrong with building product in China. It usually makes economic sense.

But that doesnt explain Musks insistence that the product is ramping-up in Buffalo. Perhaps some of the glass tile is built in Buffalo and assembled in China.

Weve reached out to Alan Cooper, Director of Global Communications and Ignoring Press Inquiries at Tesla, as well as other Tesla press contacts for information on where these tiles are built. We have not yet received a response.

The Buffalo News noted, Tesla and its [former?] partner, Panasonic, employ around 800 people in Buffalo, but that work force needs to nearly double to 1,460 by mid-April or Tesla could be hit with a $41.3 million penalty by the state, which spent $750 million in taxpayer funds to build, and partially equip, the factory.

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Does Tesla make solar glass roof tile in its Buffalo, New York factory? Or in China? - pv magazine USA

This month, the 44-year-old announced he was seeking single females over 20 willing to vie to become his girlfriend for a documentary to be aired on streaming service AbemaTV. Almost 28,000 people applied.

Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa speaks near a Falcon 9 rocket during the announcement by Elon Musk to be the first private passenger who will fly around the Moon aboard the SpaceX BFR launch vehicle, at the SpaceX headquarters and rocket factory on 17 September 2018 in Hawthorne. Picture: AFP

TOKYO - Japanese fashion billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has pulled out of a documentary search for a girlfriend to take on his voyage around the moon with Elon Musks SpaceX, citing his mixed feelings about participating.

This month, the 44-year-old announced he was seeking single females over 20 willing to vie to become his girlfriend for a documentary to be aired on streaming service AbemaTV. Almost 28,000 people applied.

Maezawa said he is extremely remorseful about the decision to pull out, apologising to the applicants and AbemaTV staff in posts to Twitter, where he is Japans most-followed account with more than 7 million followers.

Maezawa, the founder and former CEO of online fashion retailer Zozo, which he last year sold to SoftBank Group Corp, is known for launching big ideas with much fanfare - though some of them dont pan out as planned.

As CEO, he launched the Zozosuit, a polka-dot bodysuit that allowed users to collect body measurements to order custom-made clothes but which did not work well in practice. He also outlined an ambitious overseas expansion plan that wildly undershot targets, leading to a crash in the companys stock price.

Maezawa has pledged to give away $9 million to his Twitter followers in what he says is a social experiment to see if the payment boosts their happiness.

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Japanese billionaire Maezawa pulls out of dating show that promised the moon - Eyewitness News

Both Jay Leno and Elon Musk have been spotted driving around California in the newly revealed Tesla Cybertruck, sparking rumours that the new all-electric pickup truck will be making an appearance on Jay Lenos Garage before too long.

The Cybertruck made waves in the industry when it was revealed by CEO Elon Musk, especially after the awkward moment when on testing the bulletproof glass, a steel ball smashed the window. Of course, it was later revealed that thats exactly how it was supposed to work, but Elon was certainly taken aback.

Nowadays, Jay Leno is very interested in the future of all-electric motoring, and with the Tesla truck receiving plenty of clicks wherever its placed in a headline, its no surprise that the EV is taking the front seat on Lenos YouTube account / TV show. The duo was spotted driving the car near the SpaceX HQ in Hawthorne, California before it made its way to Crenshaw boulevard where it was being followed by a camera car. It was there where it obviously attracted plenty of attention. The Model Y was also seen at the shoot.

Jay Leno isnt a stranger to Tesla, getting a ride in the Roadster only last year with the designer, Franz von Holzhausen, present instead of Elon Musk. With Elon showing his face on this latest video, it should be a very interesting one indeed, especially if Jay is good enough to ask some probing questions about the timeline of the model before production.

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Jay Leno And Elon Musk Spotted Driving And Filming Tesla Cybertruck - Grand Tour Nation

How did you get the idea for Sunrun?

I was at school at the Stanford Graduate School for Business, and went to China for an internship. There was all this building happening in Shanghai, and I thought, Oh my gosh, we need to figure out how to build things more sustainably. When I went back to school, one of my classmates said, Oh, I have this friend who has this solar idea. And I was like, Yes. Love it.

Had you been interested in the environment before that?

Absolutely. Growing up in the woods and trees, I was a little bit of a naturalist. I love bird-watching, and my daughter and I do that every morning. We mark which birds we see. Its good to actually listen to the birds.

How did you get Sunrun off the ground?

My husband and I both wanted to be entrepreneurs, and we were just married, and were both in business school. There was a little bit of an agreement that whoever gets their company going first gets to do it, and then the other person has to support them. So we were both pursuing entrepreneurial ideas. When my classmate said solar, I was like, O.K., lets do it. And then my husband went back into private equity and supported us.

After Sunrun got up and running for a while, he left and started a company with a classmate, Tatcha. It was so stressful. There were times in 2013 when Sunrun wasnt profitable yet, and Tatcha was needing capital. And so before we really had any real assets to our name, we were taking the money we were making from Sunrun and investing it into Tatcha. So those were some stressful times, but we earned it. We came by it honestly.

With Sunrun, our idea was to target residential customers. I went through the Stanford database and used my cold-calling skills to call pretty much anybody I could find that had energy or utility experience. One hundred percent of people said it wouldnt work and gave me this dismissive message. Well, theres a lot of sophisticated people working on that stuff. Go home, little girl. Fast forward to today: We have almost 300,000 customers and $5 billion worth of solar.

What were your various roles at the company along the way?

Im still figuring it out. I wasnt originally the C.E.O.; my co-founder was. In the beginning, Id literally spend my weekends going to farmers markets and putting fliers on peoples windshields, and doing town hall meetings to explain how you can get solar. It was a hustle.

Over the years, it sort of evolved into what our roles would be. I had no ambition necessarily to be a C.E.O. I always thought I would be the chief of staff to the president or something. But I never aspired to be in the limelight.

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Shes Taking on Elon Musk on Solar. And Winning. - The New York Times

When you have Elon Musk on the line, you ask him for business advice even if you're Jack Dorsey.

In an undated video of what appears to be a Twitter company event, CEO Dorsey asks Tesla and SpaceX CEO Musk over video chat: "Give us some direct feedback, critique."

"What are we doing horribly? What could we be doing better? What's your hope for [Twitter's] potential as a service?" Dorsey asked Musk in the video, which was tweeted Thursday.

"If you were running Twitter, what would you do?"

Dorsey even joked with Musk, "By the way, do you want to run Twitter?"

Musk told Dorsey and the audience that Twitter could do better at distinguishing bots from real people, something the company has invested in.

"I think it would be helpful to differentiate between real and you know, not just like a verified person, but is this a real person, or is this a bot net or a sort of troll army or something like that? Basically, how do you tell if the feedback is real or someone trying to manipulate the system? Or probably real or probably trying to manipulate the system," Musk said.

"Some way to differentiate between, this is a real person and this is someone just trying to manipulate the system. I see people trying to sway public opinion, and sometimes it can be difficult to figure out what's real public opinion and what's not," he said.

"What are people actually upset about versus manipulation of the system by various interest groups? And there are many such groups."

Along with his feedback on Twitter operations, Musk also told Dorsey he believes the first human to send a tweet from Mars will happen "five years from now... probably not more than nine years from now."

(Musk has said he'll get humans to Mars by 2024. In a March tweet, he revealed plans to send manned SpaceX rockets to the planet, creating a fully "self-sustaining city" on Mars by 2050.)

Musk, who joined Twitter in June 2009, has over 30 million followers and is extremely active on the platform, often using it to communicate with Tesla customers.

But Twitter has also gotten Musk in trouble.

Most recently, in December, Musk won a defamation case brought by Vernon Unsworth, the British cave explorer whom Musk called "pedo guy" on Twitter in 2018.

And in October 2018, Musk agreed to relinquish his role as chairman at Tesla and pay a hefty fine as part of a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over an August 2018 tweet. Musk tweeted that he had secured enough funding to take Tesla private, and the SEC alleged Musk's statements were "false and misleading" and that he didn't properly notify regulators, CNBC reported.

In February, the SEC accused Musk of violating the agreement when he tweeted about Tesla production numbers, however the sides agreed to resolve the situation by amending the original settlement for clarity.

Dorsey, however, has complimented Musk's use of Twitter.

When journalist Kara Swisher interviewed Dorsey over Twitter in February, she asked him to name the "most exciting" and "influential" person on the platform.

"To me personally? I like how @elonmusk uses Twitter," Dorsey tweeted. "He's focused on solving existential problems and sharing his thinking openly. I respect that a lot, and all the ups and downs that come with it."

To that, Musk replied, "Thanks Jack, Twitter rocks!"

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Jack Dorsey asked Elon Musk how he would run Twitterhere's what Musk said - CNBC

Surprise, surprise: Elon Musk is thinking big.

SpaceX's billionaire founder and CEO outlined some ambitious goals for the company's Starship Mars-colonization system during a flurry of Twitter posts on Thursday (Jan. 16).

The Starship architecture consists of a big spaceship called Starship, which Musk has said will be capable of carrying up to 100 people, and a giant rocket named Super Heavy. Both of these vehicles will be reusable; indeed, rapid and frequent reuse is key to Musk's overall vision, which involves cutting the cost of spaceflight enough to make Mars colonization and other bold exploration feats economically feasible.

Related: SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy Rocket in Pictures

And "frequent reuse" is a bit of an understatement, it would seem. In one of Thursday's tweets, for example, Musk wrote that the eventual goal is to launch each Starship vehicle three times per day on average. Each Starship will be able to carry about 100 tons of payload to orbit, so, at that flight rate, every vehicle would loft about 100,000 tons annually, he explained.

And there won't be just one Starship far from it, if everything goes according to Musk's plan.

"Building 100 Starships/year gets to 1000 in 10 years or 100 megatons/year or maybe around 100k people per Earth-Mars orbital sync," Musk wrote in another Thursday tweet.

"Orbital sync" refers to an alignment of the two planets that's favorable for interplanetary travel, which comes along just once every 26 months. So, Musk envisions huge fleets of Starships departing during these windows.

"Loading the Mars fleet into Earth orbit, then 1000 ships depart over ~30 days every 26 months. Battlestar Galactica " he wrote in another tweet. (And Musk wants each Starship to keep flying for a while. In yet another tweet, he said SpaceX is aiming for an operational life of 20 to 30 years for each vehicle.)

Musk wants all of this activity to lead to the establishment of a sustainable settlement on the Red Planet. This goal making humanity a multiplanet species is close to the entrepreneur's heart. He has repeatedly stressed that it's why he founded SpaceX back in 2002, and why he has been amassing wealth for the past few decades.

Back in mid-2017, Musk said that the Starship architecture (which was then called the Interplanetary Transport System) could potentially allow a million-person city to rise on Mars within 50 to 100 years. He's still working toward such an ambitious timeline an even more ambitious one, in fact. On Thursday, one of Musk's Twitter followersasked, "So a million people [on Mars] by 2050?" The billionaire responded simply: "Yes."

Super Heavy won't make the trip to Mars, by the way; the huge rocket is needed just to get the Starship vehicle off Earth. The passenger spacecraft will be able to launch itself off the moon and Mars, both of which are much smaller than our planet and are therefore much easier to escape.

SpaceX is currently building its first Starship orbital vehicle, called the SN1, at the company's South Texas facilities. Also on Thursday, Musk tweeted a photo of technicians working on the SN1's nose cone and liquid-oxygen header tank.

Starship could get up and running soon. SpaceX representatives have said the first operational missions of the vehicle, which will likely loft communications satellites, could come as early as 2021. And there's already one crewed mission on Starship's manifest a round-the-moon voyage booked by Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, which is targeted for 2023.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Elon Musk is still thinking big with SpaceX's Starship Mars-colonizing rocket. Really big. - Space.com

It is a fate unavoidable for the millions of fans who have tuned into Netflix's breakout original series "The Witcher" and Elon Musk is no exception.

The Tesla founder and CEO has the "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher," the show's breakout viral song, stuck in his head, and it looks like it's been that way for at least a week.

Musk sent two tweets, almost exactly a week apart, referencing the song.

The first, in the early hours of Friday January 10, simply repeated the lyrics:

And the second, around 1 a.m. on Friday January 17 was a meme (specifically "Are You Going to Sleep?") that suggested that the song's catchiness was keeping him up at night.

Both tweets were successful even by Musk's standard, having amassed more than 200,000 likes each at time of publication.

In the show, "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher" is written and performed in the show's second episode by the character Jaskier the bard, played by British actor Joey Batey.

Here is the official version of the song, hosted on the SoundCloud account of composers Sonya Belousova & Giona Ostinelli.

The song has been the most shareable thing to come out of "The Witcher," a video game adaptation which was in turn inspired by a series of Polish novels.

In an interview with Business Insider's Travis Clark, showrunner Lauren S. Hissrich said that the song's catchiness is part of a more subtle point, which is "horrific" when you think hard enough.

The idea stems from the fact that the account Jaskier gives of the feats of Geralt of Rivia (played by Henry Cavill) is untrue, and the reality was far less heroic.

Hissrich said:

"It's a catchy song, but if you step back and listen to the lyrics, it's horrific. What it's saying is: I'm going to change how history sees this entire event just because I've written a catchy song."

Netflix has commissioned a second season of "The Witcher," which Hissrich said in a recent Reddit post is due out some time in 2021.

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Elon Musk has had the viral song from 'The Witcher' stuck in his head for at least a week - Business Insider

Making it cheap to get humans and their stuff to and from space is no easy undertaking. But Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, is rushing to do just that at the southern tip of Texas and may be crashing in a historic A-frame home to catch what rest he can between long slogs of work.

Musk has been working late on an unprecedented rocket system called Starship. If realized, the final vehicle would be made of steel, stand 387 feet tall, and be fully reusable. Since most rockets today fall into the ocean after one use, Starship's reusability positions it to replace all other systems by slashing the cost of launching to space by more than 90%.

According to Musk, Starship would be even cheaper to operate per flight than SpaceX's own partly reusable Falcon 9 rockets. Where Falcon 9 costs the company tens of millions of dollars to fly up to 25 tons of payload, Starship might cost just $2 million to launch up to 100 tons, Musk said in November.

Such a system could deploy hundreds of SpaceX's next-generation Starlink internet satellites, heave gigantic telescopes into space for NASA, and ferry dozens of passengers into orbit at once. But Musk's big "aspirational" goals for Starship include sending the first cargo to Mars in 2022, launching the Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and a crew of artists around the moon in 2023, and rocketing the first crewed mission to Mars in 2024.

"I think we could potentially see people fly next year," Musk said in September while unveiling a Starship prototype in Boca Chica, Texas, where SpaceX is building out a private launch site and basing its development program.

Musk now travels to South Texas at least monthly, according to social-media posts by Musk and others, for hands-on work toward launching the first Starship prototype, which he said might fly as soon as February or March.

During a visit in late December, Musk tweeted he was "up all night" working on the "most difficult part" of Starship's steel structure: the domed ends of 30-foot-wide propellant tanks. (Such a dome failed during a pressurization test weeks earlier, sending it flying hundreds of feet into the air and across a state highway.)

People who live in the area and whom SpaceX is trying to buy out find it hard to ignore Musk's presence, given his heavy security detail and onlookers who flock to their remote and formerly sleepy retiree-age beach community.

At least one resident, whose identity Business Insider has verified but who asked not to be named because of ongoing property-sale negotiations with SpaceX, said Musk almost certainly now crashes in an A-frame-style house that SpaceX recently acquired.

"It's perfect," the resident said, adding that the house is not only the nicest of about 30 homes in the area but also the only place that's "secluded and security-controlled."

Here's a look inside the home, which also has a special historic significance to the Boca Chica area.

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Elon Musk keeps traveling to Texas to work on SpaceX's new Starship rocket. A local thinks the CEO now uses a historic home as a crash pad take a...

Elon Musks The Boring Company is currently constructing an underground electric transport system to move people around the Las Vegas Convention Center, and its nearly halfway done.

The Boring Company broke ground on the $52.5 million loop system project in November. In just two months, it is about 50 percent complete and around six football fields in length, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Once the project is done, it will consist of two 1-mile tunnels that will use electric vehicles to transport at least 4,400 passengers per hour around the convention center.

The project is expected to be extended to connect the convention center to popular Las Vegas hot spots on the strip, as well as to the McCarran International Airport.

CEO and founder Elon Musk has been working on underground tunnel travel as a way to move people and freight around more efficiently, with a private tunnel completed for Tesla in Los Angeles. But the Las Vegas tunnel will be the first commercial, publicly available system the Boring Company will finish.

Other projects on The Boring Companys listinclude a proposed loop running from downtown Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, a loop to get to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles and another loop in downtown Chicago.

The loop system in Las Vegas is expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

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Elon Musk is nearly halfway done with his Las Vegas loop - The Hill

The head of Elon Musks tunneling company said he expects a deal to build an underground transit system through the Las Vegas resort corridor to already be teed up, should the current tunnel project beneath the citys convention center prove a success.

The Boring Co. (TBC) President Steve Davis told a business group in Las Vegas on Jan. 9 that the company must first complete the Las Vegas Convention Center project on schedule by the end of the year. It also needs to deliver, he said, on the promise of using Teslas to move 4,400 people per hour with what the company calls its Loop system.

Then, he said, tourism industry stakeholders will be ready to consummate ongoing talks about expanding the system from the airport to the Strip and into downtown. Were always in discussion with everyone who might be interested, he told the Nevada chapter of the American Public Works Association.

Well have lots of talks and if it goes well, everythings teed up.

The company began work in November on the $52.5-million project, which will link the existing Las Vegas Convention Center complex with the under-construction, 1.4-million-sq-ft West Hall.

Davis pointed to the recent Consumer Electronics show held at the convention center to illustrate how tunneling adds travel capacity without disrupting surface activity.We were tunneling under the main hall of the convention center, he said, and nobody had any idea we were there.

When finished, TBCs project will move people along two nearly one-mile-long, one-way tunnels in Tesla sedans and 16-passenger vehicles built off Model X chassis.

Davis said the company looks at the convention center effort, not as a one-time project, but the first of many, many projects. Were actually very impatient and anxious to expand quickly. To be frank, our focus is here.

The convention center job, with its short timetable and clear deliverables, offers a highly visible test on which the companys future hinges, Davis says.

Were going to build the Loop at the convention center, and one of two things will happen. Either everyone will hate it, and well go out of businessoption two, everyone loves it and we expand."

So where do you expand? There are some very obvious places to expand," he said.The larger convention center, new resorts and Allegiant Stadium, future home of the NFLs Raiders, are expected to increase visitor volume and add to traffic congestion.

Davis said if the Boring Co.s footprint grows in Las Vegas, he expects Southern Nevada to become a research hub for the company.

I have a feeling that at some point we end up here with some huge swath of land in the desert, testing boring machines. Down Las Vegas Boulevard is super obvious. North into the city of Las Vegas, into the airport, he said.

Davis said Musk, who founded the Boring Co. in 2016, wants to bring to tunneling the efficiencies of standardization and technology he has applied to Tesla, the Gigafactory and SpaceX, where Davis was once an executive. He said the Boring Co. has a moonshot goal of being able to tunnel a mile a day, but right now its like a mile every six weeks.

The convention center tunnel will be the Boring Co.s first commercial project. The company did not respond to a request for additional comment.

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Elon Musk's Tunnel Company Seeks to Expand Its Reach in Las Vegas - Engineering News-Record