FAQ
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Fast answers to the things people actually search for about SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, The Boring Company, xAI, and everything they're building. For the full story on any of these, follow the link at the end of each answer.
How high do Starlink satellites orbit?
Starlink satellites orbit about 342 miles (550 km) above Earth — SpaceX is actually lowering thousands of them to roughly 298 miles (480 km) in 2026 for safety.
More on Starlink →How many Starlink satellites are in orbit?
There are over 11,000 Starlink satellites in orbit as of August 2026, with FCC approval for as many as 42,000 eventually.
More on Starlink →What is Liner Truck 3?
The Boring Company's Liner Truck 3 — which hauls tunnel wall segments underground — runs on Tesla Model 3 battery packs and drive units, not custom industrial parts.
More on Liner Truck 3 →Is Optimus really going to Mars?
Optimus robots are slated to fly to Mars aboard Starship as early as late 2026, aiming to start building shelters before any human sets foot there.
Roger's take on Optimus →What is Marslink?
SpaceX has a planned Mars version of Starlink called "Marslink," designed to give a future colony the same kind of connectivity Starlink gives Earth.
See how it all connects →When is the next Starlink V3 satellite launch?
Starship Flight 14 (targeting September 28, 2026) is set to carry the first 26 V3 Starlink satellites into orbit — each one adding 1 Tbps of capacity, 26 Tbps total from one launch.
More on Starlink V3 →What is Terafab?
Terafab is a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI to build a chip fab in Texas over 100 million square feet — big enough to be the largest building in the world, and mainly driven by chip demand from Optimus and Cybercab.
More on Terafab →What is Starmind?
Starmind is SpaceX's plan for an AI satellite megaconstellation — up to a million satellites in orbit, each running AI inference directly in space and powered by solar instead of the terrestrial grid.
More on Starmind →Is xAI part of SpaceX?
Yes — as of February 2026, SpaceX owns xAI outright, and xAI owns X (formerly Twitter). SpaceX, xAI, Grok, and X are now all under one corporate roof.
More on xAI →Is Starshield real?
Yes — Starshield is SpaceX's military and national-security variant of Starlink, publicly unveiled in 2022. It's the backbone of a $2.29 billion Space Force communications contract and the National Reconnaissance Office's spy satellite constellation.
More on Starshield →Why does Elon Musk want to merge brains with computers?
Musk has said humans are too slow at getting information into and out of computers — "if the AI can communicate at terabits per second, and you're communicating at bits per second, it's like talking to a tree." Neuralink is his proposed fix.
More on Neuralink →What companies does Elon Musk own?
SpaceX (which now also owns xAI and X), Tesla, Neuralink, and The Boring Company are the main ones — plus joint ventures like Terafab spanning several of them at once.
See the full list →How old is Elon Musk?
Elon Musk was born June 28, 1971, in Pretoria, South Africa — making him 55 years old as of September 2026.
About this site →How many people does Elon Musk employ?
Roughly 160,000 people worldwide as of 2026 — about 135,000 at Tesla and 22,000 at SpaceX, plus smaller teams at Neuralink, The Boring Company, and X/xAI. Tesla's production-line pay runs about 31% above the national average, and professional roles at both companies typically average $90K-$100K+. Musk has said stock options turned real factory workers into millionaires — Tesla's former CFO alone held shares worth over $16 million — though no one's ever published an exact count of how many.
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