Elon Musk’s Wednesday, Oct. 21, ran on two tracks: a long run of posts against Texas Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico, and an afternoon Tesla earnings call on which he spent much of his time lowering expectations for the Optimus robot. The desk read every post on his account from 7:07 a.m. PT Wednesday to 7:07 a.m. PT Thursday plus a transcript of the call, sorted his statements by topic, and lists the highlights first, then looks closer at the call.

Highlights. To Democrats who, per a he quoted, may investigate him if they win Congress, he wrote: “Live by the sword, die by the sword. Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets …” (, about 214,000 likes). On the call, asked about a SpaceX merger, he said: “I think I said everything that should be said yesterday. Tap dancing through a minefield there” (transcript). For a laugh, when a fan graded “SpaceX earnings production: A+” and “Tesla earnings production: F-,” he answered: “Fair enough, we will make it more entertaining next time” (). And when a poster called a combined Tesla-SpaceX “the biggest corporation in the world,” he corrected: “*solar system” ().

SpaceX and Starlink. Replying to a clip of investor Brad Gerstner on SpaceX’s computing plans, Musk wrote: “We have a shot at exceeding 10GW next year” (). On a post saying United’s chief executive sees customers switching airlines over Starlink Wi-Fi, he wrote: “Starlink moves the needle” (); the United figures come from that post, and the desk did not check them with United.

Tesla. Quoting the company’s results post, he wrote “Great progress by the Tesla team!” () and, on a list showing 1.74 million active FSD subscriptions, “People are buying FSD with a car attached, not the other way around” (). Asked for a video call next quarter like SpaceX’s, he replied: “It will be next time” ().

X. Beyond the legacy-news post, he urged readers to share links from his platform: “Send 𝕏 links to your friends so that they know what’s really going on” (, about 24.6 million views).

Grok Bot. Musk pitched his company’s assistant for everyday errands. On taxes: “Do it both conventionally and with Grok @Bot, then compare. Actually, it’s worth showing Grok last year’s tax returns and see if it finds opportunities for improvement. There may be refunds you’re owed” (). On credit: “Grok @Bot can help protect and fix your credit rating. Just ask it to do so!” (). On spam calls: “Just ask Grok Bot to put you on the do not call lists” (); the FTC notes that its registry “doesn’t block calls” and “won’t stop calls from scammers making illegal calls.” Quoting the official @bot account’s launch of pages, “Grok Bot can now build reports, memos, and dashboards,” he wrote: “Grok @Bot is like hiring a super smart and fun employee!” (). xAI’s help page says pages roll out “gradually” and “isn’t available on Enterprise teams yet.” His Grok Bot post with the most views, about 36.3 million, quoted Robert Scoble’s account of a bot that reads an X List every hour and builds a news page: “Try Grok @Bot, you will love it!” (). He also reposted launches of X Spaces and Lists inside the assistant (The Daily Bot, an unofficial site, reports that list reads can cost X credits) and of a Runway video plug-in that, per Runway, runs on Runway credits.

U.S. politics. The Texas race drew his most-viewed posts. Besides the “Pure evil” post, he wrote “Talarico is a creep” (, about 26.2 million views), “Talarico, the creep, in his OWN words” over a montage of clips assembled by another account (), “Talarico hates Texas” () and “There is something deeply wrong with Talarico” (). Talarico , and in a Houston speech said, “Elon Musk wants our land. He wants our water. He wants our taxpayer dollars,” and “Texas is not for sale,” CNBC reports. CNBC also reports Musk gave $158 million in September to the Senate Leadership Fund, money that “ended up with Texas PAC,” which backs Republican Ken Paxton; Musk replied to Talarico directly: “In your own words …” (). Separately, on Kara Swisher’s podcast remark that he “knows what’s coming,” he wrote: “Sounds like Swisher really wants to go to prison” (); Mediaite quotes her full remarks. Forbes reports Democrats have shown interest in his DOGE role, his companies’ federal contracts and a reported Starlink slowdown in Ukraine.

Europe and culture. He replied “They are traitors to Italy” to a post about Italian court rulings in a 2018 rape and killing case (); the desk did not verify that post’s account of the rulings. And to a fan list of his supposed lucky breaks: “Even if I am just a lucky charm, I’m damn good it 😂” (, sic).

Deep dive: the Tesla call. Musk opened by saying demand keeps “exceeding our production by a significant margin” and that “the biggest driver for demand is Full Self-Driving,” the transcript shows. On Robotaxi, he said the Austin Cybercab fleet “has grown by a factor of 10 since launch about a month ago,” and CNBC quotes him saying the service “starts to become noticeable in Q2 and then probably a big deal by Q3 or Q4 of next year.”

On Optimus, he explained the slow start: “there’s like 10,000 things that have to go right,” and production “it’ll move as fast as the slowest, least likely of the 10,000.” The hand remains the hardest part because “humans have self-repair. Our body repairs itself, but robots don’t.” He wants a video “where it’s Optimus doing things that are not pre-programmed,” first saying “a month or so” and then “maybe a month or two,” and he expects the AI5 chip in the robot “in approximately April of next year.” For training data, he said Tesla needs “on the order of 10,000 or 20,000 bots” doing “self-play,” comparing them to a toddler who eventually learns “to wipe their own ass, which is a big milestone, as anyone who’s had kids knows” (transcript).

On chips, he said Tesla’s Terafab should make a first test chip “around May or June,” useful chips at volume “around Q3 of 2028,” and will cost “north of $100 billion long term” (transcript). On Cybercab ownership: “the vast majority of the Cybercab stuff will be essentially Tesla-owned and transport as a service” (CNBC). Asked about competition, he closed one answer: “as they say in Vegas, betting on the come.”

Outlets differ on the market reaction and some figures. The Wall Street Journal reported shares up about 1.2% after hours and capital spending of $4.73 billion; CNBC reported the stock “slid more than 3% in extended trading” and gave capital spending as $3.73 billion. Both report revenue of about $28.05 billion and net income of $787 million. Musk’s targets, from the robot timeline to Terafab, describe plans, not results, and he hedged several himself (“about a year or so”).