Farzad: "SpaceX vs Legacy Telecomm Has Officially Begun" and Is "About to Get Nasty" + Elon Says Grok 4.8 "Will Not Be a Disappointment"

Thursday afternoon, Sawyer Merritt reported that SpaceX is accusing T-Mobile and other legacy carriers of trying to harm the company over satellite-to-phone rules, quoting a new SpaceX filing to the FCC. Farzad's read: "SpaceX vs Legacy Telecomm has officially begun. It's about to get nasty." Just after midnight, Elon said Grok 4.8 "will not be a disappointment."

"It's about to get nasty": SpaceX vs legacy carriers

SawyerMerritt, Thursday at 1:51pm CT: SpaceX is accusing T-Mobile and other legacy carriers of deliberately trying to harm the company and undermine @Starlink Mobile's expansion by pushing outdated, restrictive satellite-to-phone rules that could prevent millions of people in underserved communities from accessing the service.

Sawyer quotes what he says is a new SpaceX filing to the FCC: "SpaceX has worked extensively with other operators, including T-Mobile. Unfortunately, the misplaced desire to harm a competitor has led many incumbents to oppose modernized rules that would bring direct-to-cell service to underserved border communities. The Commission should recognize that AFTRCC is now purely a lobbying organization whose mission is to protect legacy companies and their comments should not be viewed as independent or objective."

The "millions of people" line is Sawyer's summary. The quoted filing text says "underserved border communities." The quote names only T-Mobile, and the post doesn't say what AFTRCC is. Sawyer says the full filing is in a thread, and that thread isn't in this pull. Direct-to-cell means satellite service that goes straight to ordinary phones.

Farzad liked it and quoted it at 1:58pm CT: SpaceX vs Legacy Telecomm has officially begun. It's about to get nasty.

That's his read. He doesn't say what form he expects the fight to take. At 6:19pm CT he posted a video titled Elon Is Going to War With Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile.

Earlier Thursday, at 10:39am CT, Sawyer reported that the FCC "voted today to advance new satellite-to-phone rules that could benefit @SpaceX's Starlink Mobile, despite lobbying efforts by AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to restrict parts of this proposal." By his account, the proposal would open up an additional 482 MHz of spectrum for satellite-to-phone services, expanding eligible frequency bands from 5 to 13. It would also drop restrictive spectrum-leasing requirements and rigid geographic coverage restrictions. MHz (megahertz) is the unit used to measure radio spectrum. In Sawyer's outline of next steps, a public comment period opens in late 2026 and the FCC holds a final vote sometime in 2027. Farzad liked that post too. Neither of Sawyer's posts says how the filing relates to the vote.

Check SawyerMerritt here. Farzad's post here. Sawyer on the FCC vote here. Farzad's video here.

Elon: Grok 4.8 "will not be a disappointment"

techdevnotes, Thursday at 10:14am CT: Apart from Voice, SpaceXSI barely has any SOTA models …

SOTA is short for state of the art, meaning the best available.

Elon replied Friday at 12:17am CT: I know it's taken longer than expected, but Grok 4.8 will not be a disappointment. We're not optimizing for benchmarks and I really don't care how Grok does on those, but it will be incredibly useful.

Benchmarks are the standardized tests AI labs use to compare models. "Incredibly useful" is Elon's promise, and the post doesn't say when Grok 4.8 ships. Farzad liked it.

Check Elon here. techdevnotes here.

Grok Bot "has no free tier"

XFreeze, Thursday at 7:16am CT: Grok Bot is growing at an absolutely insane pace. Daily active users have increased for 16 consecutive days, marking its longest growth streak since launch. Here's how fast it's growing: Under 100K daily active users in early September. Over 600K daily active users by October 26. More than 6X growth in less than two months. And this is only the beginning

XFreeze is a fan account, and the post doesn't say where the user counts come from. It quotes Similarweb's post on the 16-day streak, below, which gives no user count.

Elon quoted it at 4:39pm CT: Worth noting that Grok @Bot has no free tier

He doesn't confirm XFreeze's numbers or add any of his own. Farzad liked it.

Similarweb, Thursday at 3:35am CT: As of October 26, Grok Bot has grown in DAUs for 16 consecutive days, its longest growth streak to date.

DAUs are daily active users. Similarweb's post doesn't give a user count. Farzad RTd it at 3:07pm CT.

Check XFreeze here. Elon here. Similarweb here. Farzad's RT here.

One bot for the whole chain, and "for subjective stuff, AI will be average"

Farzad, Thursday at 9:32pm CT: One of the biggest breakthroughs I've had with Grok @bot recently is maximizing the amount of stuff you give ONE of your bots to do. Instead of having manager bots watching over multiple other bots, just define one bot to own that ENTIRE chain of tasks and jobs.

He says Grok Bot "seems VERY good at following the chain of progress" through a bigger set of tasks. His model: "Think of each bot as an organization in a business, and have that bot own the entire org." He says that as models get better, "you can start orchestrating orgs to compound on each other." He also says his Solo bot, which runs his long-form video process end to end, is built this way.

He was quoting EmmetPeppers, who said Grok Bot is saving them "a ton of time." EmmetPeppers listed having a "chief of staff BOT to 'train' other bots" among the unnecessary things they've learned not to waste time on. Farzad liked that post.

At 10:07pm CT, JoshExile82, who said they manage social media for restaurants, asked whether this means one social media bot in place of a chief of staff bot, a captions bot and a photo editing bot. Farzad replied at 10:18pm CT: Exactly. Social Media will be the bot, and it'll do literally anything you need to do for social media.

At 10:21pm CT, JoshExile82 said the chief of staff method had given them "nothing but issues." They added that Grok Bot struggles with their creative work because "the current model isn't that great with writing or 'picking' good photos. Even with training." Farzad liked that and answered at 11:17pm CT: AI will not be good at that for probably a while yet - that requires quite a bit of human taste. It's super subjective, because what you like doesn't mean others will. For subjective stuff, AI will be average, but if you input your personal taste, it'll make it unique.

That's his view. "A while" is as specific as he gets on timing.

The one-bot approach hasn't worked for everyone. At 11:15pm CT, DillonLoomis said that when they load a main bot with "5+ tasks at a time it ALWAYS forgets and doesnt follow thru with all of them," so they now run separate main bots by topic. Farzad replied less than a minute later: Are the 5 tasks part of a chain?

Check Farzad's post here. EmmetPeppers here. His replies here, here and here.

A "quasi-infinite" wealth gap, or abundance? "Help."

Aaron Levie, Thursday at 11:50pm CT: It's almost incomprehensible how wide the distance is between someone who's working at the frontier with AI and basically everyone else right now. The crazy thing is these lines are not converging, but only growing farther apart.

Later in the post, Levie writes that the curve of AI progress "is basically going vertical right now," so anyone who codified their processes 3 to 6 months ago is "likely already behind again." He says AI native companies have a strong advantage, and "now it comes down to can the bigger companies keep up." Farzad liked it.

Elon quoted it Friday at 12:09am CT: True. Farzad liked that too.

Farzad replied to Elon at 12:16am CT: If AI isn't fully abundant, then this by default means that the wealth gap is going to be quasi-infinite, which kind of implies abundance? Help.

Farzad is thinking out loud here, and he ends by asking for help. Levie's post is about a gap in how people and companies use AI. Farzad's reply carries that over to wealth, and it doesn't explain how a quasi-infinite gap would imply abundance.

Check Aaron Levie here. Elon here. Farzad's reply here.

Elon's week, per ALScyborg

ALScyborg, Thursday at 10:57am CT: Elon on X, this week. My ranked top 8 @elonmusk posts.

The list goes with a video. Each entry is ALScyborg's one-line summary of an Elon post, and the text doesn't link to any of those posts. Five of the eight:

• "Starship 42 will be the first tower catch." No date is given.
• SpaceX's $40B for GPUs. The list doesn't say what the money covers or over what period.
• Robotaxi's rocket-shaped Houston map and FSD (Tesla's Full Self-Driving) in Europe. The list doesn't say what Elon said about Europe.
• Neuralink speech: 75 words a minute for ALS. Farzad posted a video titled Why Neuralink's 75 Words a Minute Is a Big Deal at 4:29pm CT.
• Starlink Mobile in "2 or 3 years." The list doesn't say what Elon expects to happen in that time.

Farzad liked it and RTd it at 2:56pm CT.

Check ALScyborg here. Farzad's RT here.

"Tesla will be very high too"

JonErlichman, Thursday at 7:17pm CT: Expected profit growth in next 4 years: SpaceX +7,923%, Marvell +508%, AMD +501%, Arm +335%, Palantir +334%, Broadcom +306%, Celestica +285%, Oracle +193%, Nvidia +168%, Vertiv +112%, Arista +112%, TSMC +110%, Microsoft +101%, ASML +91%, Dell +83%, Meta +75%, Amazon +36%, Alphabet +30%.

The post says the figures are expected 4-year net income growth, including the current fiscal year, based on average analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg. It doesn't say what starting profit each figure is measured from, which matters a lot for a number like SpaceX's +7,923%. Tesla isn't on the list.

Elon replied at 10:15pm CT: Tesla will be very high too

That's Elon's opinion. He doesn't give a number or a reason. Farzad liked it.

Check JonErlichman here. Elon here.

Also Thursday

At 7:17am CT, unusual_whales posted that, per the Guardian, employers worldwide are pulling back on AI. The post says a flood of errors and low-quality work is eating employee time, raising privacy and security risks and driving up costs. It doesn't link to the Guardian story. Farzad quoted it at 10:00am CT: Legacy companies will get destroyed by AI-first startups. If you're an entrepreneur, there's literally no better time to build.

That's his forecast.

Check unusual_whales here. Farzad's post here.

Ed Ludlow, 5:50pm CT: Question over a beer: how do you know when its not the early innings of AI?

Farzad liked it and replied at 8:48pm CT: When the majority of the public has a super-positive take on AI. That's his test.

Check Ed Ludlow here. Farzad's reply here.

Elon, 11:06pm CT: Neuralink's first product is called Telepathy. It enables high-speed communication with computers or humans simply by thinking. Output bandwidth will vastly exceed the fastest human speech or typing in a few years. Read that sentence again.

He was quoting a Neuralink thread about a 72-hour hackathon its engineers held with one of its speech restoration study participants. Farzad liked Elon's post and quoted it at 11:11pm CT: Neuralink will be the highest bandwidth way for a human to interface with an agent. As foretold.

At 11:10pm CT, Elon added: Our second product is called Blindsight and it will, as the name suggests, enable even those who are completely blind or have never seen to see. It is ready from an engineering standpoint. Just waiting on regulatory approval.

The bandwidth forecast and the claim that Blindsight is ready are Elon's. He doesn't name the regulator or give a timeline. Farzad liked it and RTd it at 11:18pm CT.

Check Elon on Telepathy here. Farzad's post here. Elon on Blindsight here. Farzad's RT here.

At 11:49pm CT, the Robotaxi account said operating hours are now 6am to 2am. The same update adds:

• a rear view camera feed you can watch during the ride
• sharing trip details with a friend
• a new Live Activity design
• a Calm Mode that dims the screen and sets the cabin lighting to a relaxing state
• Grok on its Model Y vehicles
• some accessibility features

The post doesn't say which cities the new hours cover. Farzad liked it and quoted it at 11:54pm CT: Robotaxi operating hours expanded to 2am. Wow! HOPE THE CLEANING CREWS ARE READY LMAO

Check Robotaxi here. Farzad's post here.

Farzad's videos

Under the telecom video, Farzad wrote at 12:00am CT Friday that it was "Made 100% with my Grok @Bot Solo." The link card on that reply says Solo takes "a long-form YouTube topic all the way to a finished video link by itself: research, script, voiceover, 2D animation with b-roll, and export." Tijs_Fan asked in the same thread, "Is this Claude and voice clone?" He answered at 12:01am CT: Claude + Astra + Grok Bot + voice clone + macs rendering. He doesn't say what Astra is.

Check his replies here and here.

Besides the telecom video, he posted five more between Thursday afternoon and early Friday. This pull only has their titles.

Check Why SpaceX Lands Some Boosters on a Ship in the Ocean, Thursday at 3:03pm CT, here.

Check Why Neuralink's 75 Words a Minute Is a Big Deal, Thursday at 4:29pm CT, here.

Check NASA Says 22 Starship Launches for the Moon. Elon Says 6 to 8, Thursday at 6:41pm CT, here.

Check Why One Daily Pill Doubled Pancreatic Cancer Survival, Friday at 3:11am CT, here.

Check Why the Cybertruck Is Made of Flat Panels, Friday at 5:58am CT, here.