Rowan Luo

technology economy and the future

[Farzad 🇺🇸 🇮🇷 @farzyness]

Tesla Says 0-60 in 0.81 s: That's 3.4 g, and No Street Tire Can Grip It

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Message for the West: wake up.

Last night in Texas, at a SpaceX facility, Elon Musk made a car fly. The new Tesla Roadster drove up a ramp, went upside down, fired ultra-high-pressure air thrusters, rolled in mid-air and landed back on its wheels. His words: "Flying cars are real." Production planned for 2028.

This isn't a gimmick. It's an answer.

Last November on Joe Rogan, asked why Tesla would build a flying car, Musk's answer was simple: his friend Peter Thiel once observed that the future was supposed to have flying cars, and we never got them. "If Peter wants a flying car, we should be able to buy one."

Everyone knows Thiel's line: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." The 2026 version: we got TikTok. For fifty years, the West stopped building in the world of atoms and retreated into the world of bits. Apps, infinite scroll, targeted ads. And we called it progress.

Yesterday, someone closed the loop. Not a ministry. Not a five-year plan. Not an ethics committee. A car company and a rocket company that decided to work together.

And this is only the beginning.

We are living through the most extraordinary revolution in human history. AI, robotics, energy, space, biology: everything is converging at once. For the first time, we can reinvent everything. All of our systems. Education, healthcare, government, production, distribution. We can dream of systems more efficient than any generation before us could imagine. Solve access to food. Make extremely high-quality goods and services available to everyone, at a cost trending toward zero. Abundance is no longer a utopia. It's an engineering problem.

But at some point, we have to open our eyes.

The West is dysfunctional. And Europe is the most advanced stage of that dysfunction.

The current technocracy, the project championed by Macron and the globalist elites, is driving us straight into a wall. It is opening a chasm between what the United States and China are capable of creating and what we are still capable of creating. They understood where value comes from. It comes from freedom. The freedom to start, to build, to try, to fail, to start again. We built a continent where, before a car could take off, you'd need three years of impact assessments, a citizens' assembly and a GDPR review.

And above all, let's not fall for the trap of the moment: believing that "sovereign AI" will save us.

Sovereign AI in a country that's no longer allowed to build is a Ferrari locked in a garage.

Europe's problem isn't technological. It's mental. We're running an ideological software that looks more and more like neo-communism: the precautionary principle as state religion, "impact" as the only moral compass, degrowth as the horizon, social justice as a pretext to redistribute before anything has even been produced. We replaced the question "what are we building?" with "what are we banning?"

As long as we run that software, we can pour all the billions we want into AI plans and nothing will happen. We'll regulate what others invent. We'll tax what others produce. And we'll watch, on our phones, other countries make cars fly.

The future is coming. It's coming fast. The only question is whether Europe wants to be an actor in it, or a museum.

Wake up.

[Rowan Luo @RowanLuo42x]

🚀🔥

[X Ethan @XEthanai]

The new Tesla Roadster is part rocket.

-Elon Musk

[Rowan Luo @RowanLuo42x]

🔥🔥

[Kekius Maximus @kekiustop]

Elon Musk pulled his kids out of school and just… built his own. Inside a rocket company. As you do.

No grades. No standardized tests. Just real problems that need solving. The school was called Ad Astra — Latin for “to the stars.” Because of course it was.

His argument is devastatingly simple: schools teach you the wrench, never the engine. You spend 12 years learning tools with zero context for why they matter. So your brain — which is literally wired to delete useless information — throws most of it away by graduation.

That’s not a flaw in students. That’s a flaw in the design.

And now we have AI — the greatest teaching tool ever built — and kids are using it to skip the thinking entirely. We didn’t get smarter. We got better at avoiding the hard part.

The tool got a PhD. The education system is still handing out participation trophies.

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Message for the West: wake up.

Last night in Texas, at a SpaceX facility, Elon Musk made a car fly. The new Tesla Roadster drove up a ramp, went upside down, fired ultra-high-pressure air thrusters, rolled in mid-air and landed back on its wheels. His words: "Flying cars are real." Production planned for 2028.

This isn't a gimmick. It's an answer.

Last November on Joe Rogan, asked why Tesla would build a flying car, Musk's answer was simple: his friend Peter Thiel once observed that the future was supposed to have flying cars, and we never got them. "If Peter wants a flying car, we should be able to buy one."

Everyone knows Thiel's line: "We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters." The 2026 version: we got TikTok. For fifty years, the West stopped building in the world of atoms and retreated into the world of bits. Apps, infinite scroll, targeted ads. And we called it progress.

Yesterday, someone closed the loop. Not a ministry. Not a five-year plan. Not an ethics committee. A car company and a rocket company that decided to work together.

And this is only the beginning.

We are living through the most extraordinary revolution in human history. AI, robotics, energy, space, biology: everything is converging at once. For the first time, we can reinvent everything. All of our systems. Education, healthcare, government, production, distribution. We can dream of systems more efficient than any generation before us could imagine. Solve access to food. Make extremely high-quality goods and services available to everyone, at a cost trending toward zero. Abundance is no longer a utopia. It's an engineering problem.

But at some point, we have to open our eyes.

The West is dysfunctional. And Europe is the most advanced stage of that dysfunction.

The current technocracy, the project championed by Macron and the globalist elites, is driving us straight into a wall. It is opening a chasm between what the United States and China are capable of creating and what we are still capable of creating. They understood where value comes from. It comes from freedom. The freedom to start, to build, to try, to fail, to start again. We built a continent where, before a car could take off, you'd need three years of impact assessments, a citizens' assembly and a GDPR review.

And above all, let's not fall for the trap of the moment: believing that "sovereign AI" will save us.

Sovereign AI in a country that's no longer allowed to build is a Ferrari locked in a garage.

Europe's problem isn't technological. It's mental. We're running an ideological software that looks more and more like neo-communism: the precautionary principle as state religion, "impact" as the only moral compass, degrowth as the horizon, social justice as a pretext to redistribute before anything has even been produced. We replaced the question "what are we building?" with "what are we banning?"

As long as we run that software, we can pour all the billions we want into AI plans and nothing will happen. We'll regulate what others invent. We'll tax what others produce. And we'll watch, on our phones, other countries make cars fly.

The future is coming. It's coming fast. The only question is whether Europe wants to be an actor in it, or a museum.

Wake up.

[Rowan Luo @RowanLuo42x]

🔥🔥

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 JUST IN: Elon Musk announces he might launch a competitor to AMAZON after it blocked Grok Bot from placing any and all orders

"Maybe we should start a competitor to Amazon." 👀

This would be HUGE.

We all know that if Elon decides to compete with Amazon, there would be no holding back. Never bet against Elon 🔥

[Rowan Luo @RowanLuo42x]

@Tesla @Tesla_Optimus

[Tesla @Tesla]

Roadster transforms in Track Mode

These aero features aren't just for looks: they provide the best passive downforce package of any road car (approaching F1 levels!) with wing actuation driven by the @Tesla_Optimus actuator system

[Tesla @Tesla]

Roadster transforms in Track Mode

These aero features aren't just for looks: they provide the best passive downforce package of any road car (approaching F1 levels!) with wing actuation driven by the @Tesla_Optimus actuator system

[Rowan Luo @RowanLuo42x]

🔥🔥

[Morgan J. Freeman @mjfree]

And just like that… my account throttled by 90% today.

Interesting timing — almost as if Musk programmed it this way 🤔

Pls ❤️ if u see this on your feed

[X Freeze @XFreeze]

User: Amazon is blocking Grok Bots

Normal CEO: We'll contact Amazon and try to resolve the issue

Elon Musk: Maybe we should build an Amazon competitor 💀

[LetsGoGifs @LetsGoGifs]

Exclusive Video of Doc Musk testing the flying car:

[Jacktron @jacktronprime]

FLASHBACK: Elon Musk back in 2020 explaining the Tesla Roadster to Jay Leno:

“We're gonna use ultra high pressure compressed air. It's a cold gas compressor.

The main thrust will be behind the license plate so for acceleration it drops the license plate and behind it is a rocket thruster. It’s like full on James Bond.”

[Rowan Luo @RowanLuo42x]

🔥🔥

[Guille Vidal @eltemagv]

Things Elon Musk could do with $1Tn dollars:

- End world hunger
- Solve climate change
- Provide schooling for every child
- Reduce housing crisis

What Elon Musk does:

- Build a stupid car-toy with no practícal use, just to impress a bunch of idiots.

Tesla Roadster should be the last straw. #EatTheRich

[Rowan Luo @RowanLuo42x]

🔥🔥

[Naz @777Bozkurtgeldi]

🚨 Elon Musk, Beyaz Saray'ın içinden ve Trump'ın tam önünde eşi benzeri görülmemiş bir bomba patlatıyor:

"Artık hiçbir şirket için çalışmanıza gerek olmayacak.. Dünyadaki her insanı, ünlüler gibi (hayali gelir) ile yaşatacağım!" ++

[Rowan Luo @RowanLuo42x]

🔥🔥

[Alexs James @Alexs_jame]

Protect Elon Musk at all costs.

[Guille G. Alfonsín @GuilleAlfonsin]

Solo voy a decir un par (o tres) de cosas sobre el Tesla Roadster que vimos ayer.

Primero: aquello ha sido un stunt publicitario. Y uno absolutamente magistral.

Así que, cuando volváis a leer que Tesla no gasta en publicidad, acordaos de anoche. Como ejercicio de imagen de marca, demostración de capacidades técnicas y generación de atención mediática, probablemente sea más potente que tener un equipo oficial de carreras en prácticamente cualquier campeonato del mundo.

Y eso tiene un mérito indudable.

Segundo: si en 2017 pagaste una reserva por un deportivo eléctrico 2+2 descapotable, prometido inicialmente para 2020, nueve años después te anuncian que tienes que esperar otros dos (¡ONCE AÑOS!) y la gran estrella de la presentación es un monoplaza que salta, gira en el aire y aterriza mediante propulsores.

Que no es precisamente lo que habías reservado.

Es como ir a un restaurante, pedir muslo de pollo, esperar tres días y que el cocinero aparezca con una nueva carta para anunciarte que va a servirte sardinas... Las quieras... O no.

Eso sí, unas sardinas que vuelan.

Y mientras los teslabros aplauden la audacia de su mesías, hay un par de cuestiones técnicas que conviene recordar.

Una cosa es hacer saltar un coche en una exhibición y otra muy distinta comercializar un vehículo capaz de realizar vuelos controlados. En ese segundo escenario entramos en el complejo territorio de la certificación aeronáutica: FAA en Estados Unidos, EASA en Europa, requisitos de aeronavegabilidad, autorizaciones operativas y licencias o habilitaciones de vuelo según corresponda, que ya están afrontando las decenas de start UPS que andan intentando vender "drones personales de vuelo".

Un follón monumental que no se resuelve simplemente homologando el coche para circular por carretera.

Y luego tenemos los ventiladores que succionan aire bajo el vehículo para generar carga aerodinámica incluso estando parado.

Una tecnología fascinante que ya hemos visto en otros deportivos experimentales (McMurtry), pero cuya aplicación a carreteras abiertas plantea problemas bastante evidentes: polvo, gravilla, piedras y todo tipo de porquería que puede terminar siendo expulsada hacia otros usuarios, hacia tu propio parabrisas... Resolverlo no es trivial.

Dicho todo esto, como ingeniero, lo que vimos ayer me parece una genialidad. El despliegue tecnológico, la capacidad para resolver desafíos de física aplicada y el factor molonidad son indudables.

Y, como herramienta publicitaria para demostrar de lo que son capaces sus ingenieros, me parece sencillamente extraordinario. Seguramente más eficaz que gastarse una fortuna compitiendo en carreras.

Pero como analista de esta industria, y conociendo el historial del personaje, me parece un mal chiste para quienes llevan casi una década esperando el coche por el que pagaron una reserva.

Musk sigue prometiendo y prometiendo, entregando una fracción de lo anunciado, y ahora nos presenta como gran revolución un producto cuyo valor diferencial comercial, más allá del factor WOW y del ejercicio de demostración tecnológica, es cuanto menos discutible.

Porque una cosa es ser capaz de hacer algo técnicamente extraordinario y otra muy distinta que tenga sentido convertirlo en un producto comercial.

Y no conviene confundir ambas cosas.

Hablaremos de todo ello, con bastante más profundidad técnica, en el videocast de PowerArt y en próximos shorts (y si queréis, hasta un largo). Porque hay mucha ingeniería interesante que desgranar detrás de lo que vimos ayer.

[Rowan Luo @RowanLuo42x]

🔥🔥

[DogeDesigner @cb_doge]

BREAKING: Elon Musk, in his new interview with Walter Isaacson, says AI and robots are the only way to solve America’s national debt.

“The only way we're going to solve the national debt is with AI and robots. We're not gonna solve it by trying to save our way there.”

[Rita Panahi @RitaPanahi]

Elon Musk is a genius. That's all. A genuine generational genius.

[Rowan Luo @RowanLuo42x]

🔥🔥

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 EPIC! President Trump drops this line on Elon Musk after the new Tesla Roadster FLEW:

"I'm VERY happy for Elon! We just gave him the science award, he deserves it. I don't know whether you're gonna see ME in that car, but it's very impressive!" 😅

Trump and Elon = DREAM TEAM

Trump awarded Musk the National Medal of Science at the White House on Oct 8. One week later, Musk unveiled the flying Roadster in Texas

Maybe Elon can give Trump the inaugural ride? 🔥