It will be this afternoon at Tesla the honor of opening the richest week of quarterly reports in Corporate America, the one that starting tomorrow will see the champions of technology parade, from Apple to Microsoft and Alphabet, giants that should announce useful records according to analysts' expectations. but themedia appeal of Elon Musk, technoking as it proclaimed itself, is something else. This is confirmed by last night's announcement (during the Oscars ceremony) that the inventor/financier will be the star of an episode of the saturday night live, the historic American TV show that rarely opened the door to businessmen.
But Musk is a special case. To limit ourselves to today's agenda, the Tesla leader will have to explain to analysts if and how Tesla will be able to maintain, under the threat of the shortage of chips (heavily affected Ford and Stellantis USA), even in the second quarter 185 cars delivered in the three months. Not only that: both in China and in the USA Tesla is under fire for safety. After the American accident that cost the lives of two passengers in a car at that time without a driver (but Tesla claims that the autopilot was not activated) a dispute came from Shanghai. In that case, Tesla argues, high speed is to blame.
But the car isn't at the top of Musk's thoughts these days. Saturday, at the launch of the Space X's Crew Dragon shuttle from Cape Canaveral, Musk said that “we have opened a new chapter in the history of space”. The four astronauts were taken to the foot of the launch pad by car (obviously Tesla) bearing the inscription Reuse, just to underline that Musk's company has managed to significantly lower the cost of space missions by reusing the spacecraft already used previously . Since yesterday, four "veteran" astronauts (two Americans, a Japanese and the Frenchman Thomas Pesquet) have arrived at the International Space Station (ISS) with the Endeavor capsule, joining their colleagues. And a long stay began (six months plus another six) waiting for other astronauts, including our own Samantha Cristoforetti. It is the third mission of this type since NASA entrusted the leadership of the program to Elon Musk who defeated the competition from Boeing and Jeff Bezos, with his "low cost" projects, albeit marked by several explosions (two) in flight. But Space X, which still has 46 successful missions out of 48 behind it, managed to obtain an exclusive contract with NASA after being able to transport men to a space station in 2020, the first private company.
Musk's secret weapon is the reusable Starship spacecraft, a distant relative of the prototypes of the past which, alas, has so far only brought disappointments, given that four models have exploded in flight on test missions. But the plans do not change. The Artemkis program, intended to bring humans back to the moon (this time for long stays) requires NASA to send four astronauts in an Orion capsule to the Gateway orbital station. There they will be transferred to the Starship which will take them back to Gateway after a week.
But in parallel Musk prepares the mission to Mars, the final stage of his program to save humanity to which he is devoting practically his entire fortune as the richest man on the planet. On the red planet he hopes not only to get there, but to be buried as the pioneer who saved humanity by paving the way for the colonization of other worlds. And so, on the eve of the meeting with the analysts, Musk stressed that the conquest of Mars "will probably involve victims". It's not hard to see why the writers of America's hottest show chose him as their host. But, suggests the Wall Street Journal, the audience in the hall that evening will be made up mostly of SEC inspectors so as not to miss a joke from the CEO already stung with a $20 million fine for announcing, which is not true, the withdrawal of Tesla from the list.
