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Elon Musk says SpaceX could fire up first orbital-class Super Heavy booster next week
Update: In response to this article, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the plan is to not only ‘cryoproof’ the first flightworthy Super Heavy – but to static fire the booster and shake down Starship’s brand new orbital launch complex as early as “next week.”
A lot of work would need to be finished – and all of it smoothly – for an orbital launch pad cryoproof and static fire to be possible just a week or less from now but Musk’s response nevertheless provides invaluable context for SpaceX’s near-term plans and confirms that Super Heavy Booster 4 is ready for integrated testing as-is. Further, Musk’s tweet implies – as speculated – that Starbase’s orbital launch complex tank farm is much closer to test-readiness than it might otherwise appear.
For the second time in five weeks, SpaceX has installed a Super Heavy booster – fitted with 29 Raptor engines – on Starship’s nascent ‘orbital launch mount.’
Both Super Heavy Booster 4 (B4) and the launch mount have undergone substantial changes since they last parted ways four weeks ago. SpaceX teams have been laser-focused on installing the vast array of plumbing, wiring, and components required to turn the hulking steel structures into functional launch facilities and the largest flightworthy rocket and both certainly look the part.
Superheavy Booster 4 pic.twitter.com/jQ7RAN1nCK— SPadre (@SpacePadreIsle) September 8, 2021
Unlike Starship, which has an expansive skirt section perfect for stowing away sensitive plumbing and avionics, Super Heavy has an unusually short interstage and no real skirt, meaning that all the extra hardware SpaceX has installed over the last month or so is impossible to hide. Indeed, when Booster 4 rolled out of Starbase’s high bay for the second time on September 8th, the rocket was blanketed by dozens of new valves, thousands of feet of wiring and plumbing, pressure vessels, multiple hydraulic racks, a ‘quick disconnect’ (QD) umbilical panel for interfacing with the launch pad, places for “flight termination system” (FTS) explosive charges to be installed, and much, much more.
Additionally, Super Heavy B4’s second batch of 29 Raptors – installed in late August – also appear to all have outward-facing umbilical panels that will all the booster to receive some level of assistance from ground systems while igniting those engines. It’s unclear what exactly they’ll do but it’s likely that those engine umbilical will connect to high-pressure gas systems on the ground, presumably minimizing the already absurd amount of COPVs and secondary plumbing present on Super Heavy.
However, Super Heavy will still need to be able to reignite anywhere from 1 to 13 of its 29-32 Raptor engines in flight for boostback and landing burns, potentially explaining the eight large pressure vessels and 100+ small, high-pressure gas lines installed on B4’s aft end. Super Heavy also needs to be able to chill, feed, and purge all 29-32 of its Raptor engines, guaranteeing that Starship’s booster plumbing situation was going to be immensely complex no matter the approach SpaceX took.
In addition to Super Heavy B4’s newfound complexity, SpaceX also spent the last four or so weeks outfitting Starbase’s orbital launch mount’ with all the plumbing, power, avionics, and mechanical systems it will need to function as “Stage Zero” of orbital-class, two-stage Starship rockets. SpaceX has installed most of the secondary quick disconnect structures that will connect to and feed each of Super Heavy’s 20 outer Raptor engines. The main Super Heavy quick disconnect device was also installed and a team has been gradually outfitting and connecting the structure to the plumbing, avionics, and power it will provide boosters.
A significant amount of work still remains to connect the orbital launch mount to SpaceX’s incomplete and custom-built orbital tank farm, which will store, supercool, and feed the pad, Super Heavy, and Starship with several thousand metric tons of liquid and gaseous oxygen and methane. It’s difficult to say how close Starbase’s tank farm is to being able to support Starship or Super Heavy testing, which makes it equally unclear what SpaceX’s near-term plans are for Booster 4. It’s possible that the rocket has been reinstalled on the orbital launch mount as a second fit check, perhaps focused on those 20 outer Raptor quick-disconnect mechanisms.
It’s also possible that the tank farm and launch mount plumbing are much closer to completion than expected, meaning that Super Heavy B4 could remain at the orbital pad until it’s completed several crucial cryogenic proof and static fire tests. Of course, short of confirmation from Musk himself, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Elon Musk
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
SpaceX priced its historic IPO at $135 per share today, raising a record $75 billion.
SpaceX officially priced its initial public offering at $135 per share, offering 555,555,555 shares of Class A common stock and raising $75 billion in what is the largest IPO in stock market history. Shares are set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday, June 12, under the ticker symbol SPCX. The previous record holder was Saudi Aramco’s 2019 offering at $29 billion, followed by Alibaba’s $22 billion offering in 2014.
At $135 per share and roughly 555.6 million shares, the implied valuation sits near $1.75 trillion, which would make SpaceX roughly the seventh largest company in the United States, just above Tesla’s current market cap. Regular investors can request shares at the IPO price through Robinhood, Fidelity, Charles Schwab, SoFi, and E*TRADE, though the deal is heavily oversubscribed and most retail allocations will be partial or unfilled. Once trading opens June 12, anyone with a brokerage account can buy SPCX on the open market.
SpaceX’s amended S-1 is sparking a major Tesla merger conversation
The valuation is anchored primarily by Starlink. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers as of February 2026 and is adding 750,000 to 1.5 million new users per month, with the connectivity segment already posting a $1.19 billion profit last quarter. The offering also bundles in xAI following SpaceX’s all-stock merger earlier this year, adding Grok and the Colossus supercomputer to the investment thesis. As Teslarati reported, Starlink ended 2025 with $10 billion in revenue, a figure analysts project could reach $24 billion by end of 2026.
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives has been vocal in his support. “I think the time is right,” Ives said, adding that the offering expands the Elon Musk ecosystem rather than competing with Tesla. An average 12-month price target of $165 per share represents roughly 22% upside from the IPO price. Not everyone agrees – Motley Fool noted xAI is spending $1 billion per month playing catch-up to OpenAI and Anthropic.
Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with a single stated purpose. “Elon founded SpaceX with a goal to change humanity, to make us a multi-planet species,” CFO Bret Johnsen said in the company’s retail roadshow video this week. Musk himself has been more direct: “We are building the systems and technologies necessary to provide global connectivity on Earth and beyond, to understand the true nature of the universe, and to extend the light of consciousness to the stars.”
Investor's Corner
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
Tesla’s folding Supercharger just arrived in Europe and it changes how fast charging expands.
Tesla’s Folding Unit Supercharger has officially landed in Europe, with the company teasing a new installation in its effort for a broader rollout targeting major motorway rest stops across the European continent in Q3 2026. The arrival marks a notable shift in how Tesla is thinking about network expansion, moving from hardware performance alone to engineering the logistics chain itself.
While Tesla did not reveal the exact location for the new folding Supercharger in Europe, the photo shared on X heavily suggests that this maybe somewhere in Norway. Historically, whenever Tesla rolls out an entirely new infrastructure architecture in Europe, whether it was the original Supercharger stalls years ago or these brand-new modular V4 “Folding Units”, Norway is almost always the designated launch pad because of its unmatched EV adoption rate and supportive infrastructure
The Folding Unit, introduced in March 2026, is a factory pre-assembled V4 charging station built on an industrial hinge system mounted to a heavy-duty concrete base. The entire assembly arrives on site ready to unfold and connect. Tesla confirmed the units feature telescopic light poles specifically designed for easy transportation and fast on-site deployment, a detail that signals how carefully the logistics chain has been engineered alongside the hardware itself. The design allows 33% more stalls per delivery truck, cuts installation time roughly in half, and reduces overall deployment costs by more than 20% compared to traditional installations.
Tesla’s newest “Folding V4 Superchargers” are key to its most aggressive expansion yet
Tesla also noted telescopic light poles which provide benefits over traditional Supercharger installations that require fixed-height poles that are awkward to ship, slow to position on site, and often require separate crews and equipment to erect before charging hardware can even be staged. By engineering poles that compress for transit and extend on arrival, Tesla has removed one of the quieter bottlenecks in the physical deployment process. Every hour saved on a light pole installation is an hour redirected toward getting stalls energized. At scale, across dozens of new sites per quarter, those hours add up to a meaningful acceleration in how quickly a location goes from approved permit to serving its first customer.
Each Folding Unit pairs a single V4 power cabinet with eight charging posts. The V4 cabinet delivers up to 500 kW per stall for passenger vehicles and up to 1.2 MW for the Tesla Semi, supporting twice the stalls per cabinet at three times the power density of its predecessor. Longer cables make every new station immediately usable by non-Tesla vehicles, a priority as Tesla continues opening its network to Ford, GM, Rivian, Hyundai, Stellantis, and others.
As Teslarati reported when the Folding Unit was first unveiled, Tesla’s Gigafactory New York produced its final V3 Supercharger cabinet in March 2026 after more than seven years and 15,000 units, completing a full pivot to V4 production. The European arrival of the folding design is the next chapter in that transition.
Faster and cheaper deployment means Tesla can justify building in markets and corridors that were previously too expensive to serve, filling the coverage gaps that have slowed EV adoption outside major urban centers.
First Folding Unit Superchargers in Europe 🇪🇺 https://t.co/KNfYWJukkL pic.twitter.com/YR1udIpH1i
— Tesla Charging (@TeslaCharging) June 10, 2026
Tesla has stunned by gaining yet another approval for its Full Self-Driving suite in Europe, its second in two days and its fifth overall.
Belgium will be the latest country to allow Tesla owners to utilize FSD on public roads in Europe, joining a quickly growing list that started with the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Estonia.
On Tuesday, Denmark announced its approval of the FSD suite, which has now been followed by Belgium just one day later.
The country’s Minister of Mobility, Annick De Ridder, announced the approval on her X account, stating that she had just signed the approval of Tesla FSD. It now goes to the country’s homologation department for the last step of the approval process.
De @Tesla community houdt hier al geruime tijd de vinger aan de pols over de toelating voor de FSD-technologie op onze Vlaamse en Belgische wegen.
Uit waardering voor jullie niet-aflatende interesse (en aanmoediging 😉), krijgen jullie hierbij de primeur: ik heb net de toelating… pic.twitter.com/Yrps4OHTj8— Annick De Ridder (@AnnickDeRidder) June 10, 2026
The Belgian approval is one of mighty importance because it truly shows how quickly countries in Europe could greenlight the FSD suite consecutively. Approvals are already coming in relatively quickly, which is a great sign.
Perhaps the next big development that could come from FSD approvals in Europe is an approval from a country like England, Italy, France, Spain, or Germany. It would be something to see how FSD would perform in a major European metro, such as London, Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, Rome, or Berlin.
Getting Full Self-Driving in Spain and England will be such huge milestones for Tesla. I am so excited to see how FSD performs in Madrid, Barcelona, and London, specifically.
The ultimate test will always be Mumbai or New Delhi. Excited for India’s eventual approval! https://t.co/paw9Ch1qmL pic.twitter.com/9RdDERVSSJ
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) June 9, 2026
Full Self-Driving does an excellent job of roaming around major U.S. cities like New York and Los Angeles, but other high-profile international cities of significance would truly mark a line in the sand for Tesla, which can simply enable any vehicle in its customer-owned fleet to run FSD with the correct approvals.
SpaceX (SPCX) IPO is live today at $135: Here’s exactly what you need to know
Tesla unfolded its first European “folding Supercharger”
