SoaceX tarship remains the most ambitious rocket, with thrust three times that of Saturn V and aiming for full rapid reusability. The biggest challenge is creating a fully reusable orbital heat shield, which has never been achieved before.
SpaceX plans to recover the upper stage Starship possibly this year or in the first half of next year. They will catch the booster and starship with Mechazilla for full reuse. They will achieve orbital refueling as the next major goal.
They will reduce per-flight cost below that of the expendable Falcon 1, enabling 100+ tons to orbit cheaper than half a ton previously.
Mars Colonization Vision
A self-sustaining Mars city would involve initial living in glass domes or Mars suits, with governance decided by Martians.
RoboTaxi and Tesla Autonomy
Cybercab (two-seater) will coexist with Model 3/Y (for 4-6 passengers), dynamically pooling vehicles based on needs.
Autonomy rollout. Tesla will have Supervised full self-driving expanding to many U.S. cities later this year, potentially many countries next year.
Optimus Humanoid Robot
Optimus Version 3 design is for volume production and is a major redesign from Version 2. They aim for a few hundred units by year-end with significant scaling next year.
Elon predictsdOptimus will surpass Tesla’s auto business, with a market for 20-50 billion units at ~$20,000 each, leading to $30 trillion+ revenue. It will be the world’s biggest product as everyone would want a superior C-3PO/R2-D2.
There will be high-value uses like 24/7 nursing for quadriplegics or dangerous/repetitive tasks; biggest long-term transformation over full self-driving.
AI, Grok, and xAI
Elon again stated that digital superintelligence is possible this year or 2026. He says AGI (artificial general intelligence) will be able to invent useful new technologies or discovering new physics.
AI/robotics could grow the world economy 10x+, eliminate poverty, provide universal abundance. The challenge he sees is finding meaning when robots outperform humans.
SuperAI could be a supersonic tsunami advancing faster than any other technology ever has advanced.
Tesla valuation could reach $20-30 trillion (20-30x current) via autonomy and Optimus which ARK Invest analysis has detailed.
Neuralink
Helps quadriplegics control devices by thought; 8 patients (all loving it), aiming for 20 by year-end; no major side effects.
Blindsight implants will soon to restore vision for the fully blind (working in monkeys for 3 years).
Long-term vision is a general-purpose device to fix any brain/neurological issue (e.g., seizures, schizophrenia, strokes, senses like sight/smell). It will provide cybernetic enhancements for ultra-high-speed communication, memory upload/download.
Neuralink integrates with Grok to read brain signals directly.
Neuralink overlaps with Optimus.
X Platform will evolve from short tweets to 2-min videos and then to 4-hour videos, novels and multimodal.
They will be launching :
Xchat (encrypted peer-to-peer audio/video calls, unreadable even under duress).
X money/payments in beta, launching in months (completing unfinished PayPal vision).
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
