News

Reports over the weekend of June 13-14 said Japan plans to invest up to $25 billion in NuScale Power and U.S.-led small modular reactor projects, part of a broader nuclear commitment exceeding $65 billion within Japan's roughly $550 billion U.S. investment package negotiated in trade talks. NuScale (NYSE: SMR) shares jumped more than 5% in overnight trading into June 15 on the news, which centers on building out an SMR supply chain inside the United States and supporting global deployment of NuScale's reactors with commercialization partner ENTRA1. The pledge is one of the largest international commitments to American SMR technology to date.

TerraPower said on June 16 that its 345-MWe Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor has formally entered the UK's Generic Design Assessment, the Office for Nuclear Regulation-led licensing process that vets a reactor's safety, security and environmental case independent of a site. The Bill Gates-founded company also launched a UK subsidiary, TerraPower UK Ltd, to pursue British deployment. The move follows the April 23 start of construction on TerraPower's flagship Kemmerer Unit 1 in Wyoming, the first U.S. utility-scale advanced reactor build, which is targeted for completion around 2030.

Fusion developer Helion Energy closed a $465 million Series G round in early June, lifting the Everett, Washington company's valuation to about $15.5 billion. The round was led by Thrive Capital, with new backers including Lux Capital, Peak XV Partners and Ford Motor executive chairman Bill Ford, and will fund Helion's first power plant, expand Washington manufacturing, and support its pledge to deliver fusion power to Microsoft by 2028. The raise follows Helion becoming the first company in the world to secure regulatory licenses for a fusion power facility and reporting measurable deuterium-tritium fusion at 150 million degrees Celsius on its Polaris prototype.

United Launch Alliance launched its Vulcan rocket on the USSF-106 mission for the U.S. Space Force on June 11, the rocket's first national security launch and ULA's 101st national security mission overall. The flight followed an anomaly investigation into a Vulcan solid rocket booster issue, resolved after a successful Northrop Grumman GEM 63XL static fire test in mid-April. ULA expects to fly 20 to 25 missions in 2026, including a September Vulcan launch carrying 45 Amazon Leo satellites on an optimized Centaur V upper stage.

WeRide outlined a plan on June 10 to commercialize its Level 4 autonomous-vehicle portfolio in Slovakia after a meeting between executives and Prime Minister Robert Fico in Bratislava, with first vehicles expected this month and testing to begin in Bratislava before expanding to Kosice and the High Tatras. The Slovakia push builds on a June 2 announcement that WeRide, Uber and AVOMO will launch Spain's first commercial robotaxi pilot in the Region of Madrid later in 2026 via the Uber app. The Chinese AV developer also took first place at the June 15 Tianjin round of China's Second Intelligent Driving Competition, a record sixth consecutive win.

Hypersonic aircraft developer Hermeus appointed Zach Shore as chief executive officer effective June 1, with founding CEO AJ Piplica transitioning to executive chairman. The leadership change comes as Hermeus advances its uncrewed Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 — billed as the world's first privately developed unmanned supersonic jet, which has flown to Mach 1.21 — and develops the larger Darkhorse, for which it has accepted its first Pratt & Whitney F100 engine to integrate into its Chimera II turbine-based combined cycle propulsion system. The company has won a $159 million Defense Department contract exploring military applications of its high-speed technology.

Eutelsat announced on June 15 the signature of the CENTAURE contract through France's Directorate General of Armaments (DGA), the first call-off order under the roughly €1 billion NEXUS framework agreement with the French Ministry of the Armed Forces. The deal is worth about €350 million over up to eight years, including a firm €138 million initial commitment across four years, to supply OneWeb low-Earth-orbit capacity across areas of strategic interest and harden the security of Eutelsat's LEO services. It gives the French military low-latency global connectivity during the ramp-up of Europe's sovereign IRIS² constellation.

Baidu said on June 12 that AmiGo — its on-demand autonomous mobility service run with Swiss Post's PostBus — received a special permit from Switzerland's Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) for Level 4 driverless operations in Eastern Switzerland, marking Apollo Go's first European regulatory approval of its kind. Open-road trials began June 1 across roughly 80 square kilometers in the cantons of St. Gallen, Appenzell Ausserrhoden, and Appenzell Innerrhoden, with regular fully driverless service targeted for early 2027 in what the partners call Europe's largest planned automated public-transport operation. The expansion adds to Apollo Go's roughly 3.2 million driverless rides in Q1 2026 and more than 22 million cumulative rides across over 27 cities.

TAE Technologies and Trump Media & Technology Group said on June 10 they now aim to close their roughly $6 billion all-stock merger in the fourth quarter of 2026 or sooner, pushing the target out from an earlier mid-2026 window. The companies also confirmed they will no longer pursue a previously discussed spin-off of TMTG media assets — including Truth Social — into a separate company, with the combined board to weigh options for legacy units after closing. TMTG plans to file a Form S-4 registration statement covering the shares issued in the deal, which would take the hydrogen-boron fusion developer public.

The U.S. Department of Energy on June 11 approved the Preliminary Documented Safety Analysis for Oklo's Aurora powerhouse at Idaho National Laboratory, a major step on the authorization pathway under the department's Reactor Pilot Program. The review covered the project's hazard and accident analysis, safety controls, and design commitments for what would be Oklo's first commercial fast-fission plant, and Oklo shares rose roughly 5% on the news. The approval follows Oklo's June 4 close of its acquisition of Oak Ridge precision-manufacturing firm ARMEC, which added about 40 engineers and technicians.

Tesla on June 14 published its Robotaxi First Responder Interaction Plan for Arizona, a mandated prerequisite for operating unsupervised SAE Level 4 vehicles on public roads that tells police and fire crews how to approach, disable, and communicate with driverless cars. The plan details a dedicated Robotaxi First Responder Support team that can set temporary geofences around accident scenes, plus a post-collision sequence in which a stopped car flashes its hazards, unlocks doors, lowers windows, and opens two-way audio to a remote agent. The filing maps a planned Phoenix-area deployment spanning Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, and Glendale, and follows Tesla's recent application to run up to 5,000 robotaxis in Nevada's Clark County.

SpaceX shares closed their first Nasdaq session at $161 on June 12, up about 19% from the $135 IPO price and lifting the company's market value above its roughly $1.77 trillion offering valuation after the largest public offering in history. As SPCX opened near $150, Elon Musk's net worth crossed $1 trillion for the first time, driven largely by his stake and roughly 82% voting control. The debut capped a record $75 billion raise and gave public investors their first direct exposure to Starlink and SpaceX's launch and AI-compute businesses.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems said a global team of scientists has published five peer-reviewed papers in a special issue of the Journal of Plasma Physics validating the physics of ARC, its planned first commercial-scale fusion power plant, building on lessons from its SPARC demonstration tokamak. The Gates- and Nvidia-backed company, which has raised nearly $3 billion, is targeting the early 2030s to feed about 400 megawatts onto the grid from its ARC plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia — enough to power roughly 280,000 homes — and has begun the interconnection process. Some outside researchers cautioned that data from an operating reactor is still needed to confirm the predictions.

X-energy on June 2 submitted its Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactor to enter the UK's Generic Design Assessment, the Office for Nuclear Regulation-led licensing pathway that evaluates a reactor's safety, security, and environmental case independent of a specific site. The submission, made with utility partner Centrica, supports plans to deploy up to 6 GW of new nuclear in Britain, with Hartlepool identified as the preferred first site for a 12-unit installation, and the assessment is expected to conclude by the end of 2029. The 80-MWe TRISO-fueled design is also advancing toward its first U.S. deployment with Dow in Texas.

A newly formed joint venture between Blue Castle Holdings and Fulcrum Point Holdings will deploy Holtec International's SMR-300 pressurized-water reactors at the long-dormant Blue Castle site in Green River, Utah, the partners said in early June, reviving a project that had spent 19 years collecting environmental, seismic, and groundwater data. The plan calls for two to four SMR-300 units producing a combined 600 to 1,200 MW, and Holtec's air-cooling design is well suited to the arid Emery County site where water is scarce. The revival falls under Utah's 'Operation Gigawatt' clean-energy initiative.

NIO's small-car brand Firefly launched an 8-bit-themed limited-edition EV on June 10, capped at 333 units and priced at 135,800 yuan — about 13% above the base car — and sold out the run in under eight hours. The push comes as Firefly delivered 5,663 vehicles in May, up about 54% year over year, and after the brand passed 60,000 cumulative deliveries less than two months after hitting 50,000. NIO is also opening its fifth-generation battery-swap stations to Firefly owners for the first time this month.

Waymo on June 11 launched Waymo Premier, its first-ever loyalty subscription, charging $29.99 a month for priority vehicle matching, 10% back in Waymo Cash ride credits, up to five free cancellations a month, and early access to new markets. The invite-only plan rolled out to tens of thousands of the company's most frequent riders in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, and marks Waymo's first move to build recurring revenue as Alphabet's Other Bets segment posted a $2.1 billion Q1 2026 operating loss. Waymo estimates riders taking roughly four trips a week would recoup the monthly fee through cashback alone.

The U.S. Department of State and SpaceX's Starlink announced a two-year memorandum of understanding on June 12 to use Starlink's low-Earth-orbit network to restore communications during international disasters and humanitarian crises. The department's Bureau of Disaster and Humanitarian Response will coordinate directly with Starlink to give emergency responders and affected populations rapid connectivity when storms, outbreaks, or other crises knock out infrastructure. The agreement formalizes the ad hoc deployments Starlink has made during events such as Hurricane Melissa, Typhoon Kalmaegi, and recent cyclones, and lands the same week parent SpaceX debuted on the Nasdaq.

Rocket Lab said on June 12 it will be added to the Nasdaq-100 Index before the market open on Monday, June 22, joining the 100 largest non-financial companies listed on the Nasdaq. Founder and CEO Sir Peter Beck called the inclusion a reflection of the company's journey 'from a small company with big ambitions to a global space leader,' capping a 2026 rally that has included its first quarter with revenue above $200 million and a five-launch Neutron deal ahead of the rocket's late-2026 debut. The move makes Rocket Lab one of only a handful of pure-play space companies in a major U.S. large-cap index.

In an order dated June 5, the FCC waived Amazon Leo's requirement to place half of its 3,232-satellite Gen1 constellation — 1,616 spacecraft — in orbit by July 30, 2026, after Amazon said in January it could not meet the interim milestone and asked for a two-year extension. Rather than grant the extension, the agency eliminated the half-deployment deadline while keeping the July 30, 2029 full-deployment requirement intact, and imposed a penalty: Amazon temporarily loses priority spectrum status for any satellites not operational by July 30, 2026, with the chance to reclaim it in March 2028 or once it hits the 50% milestone. The relief matters because Amazon's deployment leans on Blue Origin's New Glenn and ULA's Vulcan, and New Glenn remains grounded after a May 28 pad explosion.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stephanie Pope said the FAA has granted the 777-9 Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) Phase 4B, unlocking the largest remaining block of certification flight testing — covering avionics, stability and control, and human-factors work — in remarks at the IATA Annual General Meeting in Rio de Janeiro reported the week of June 8. Phase 4B is the last of the five TIA phases carrying a significant workload, keeping Boeing on course to certify the long-delayed widebody later in 2026 with first deliveries targeted for early 2027. The progress comes after Boeing trimmed 33 777X orders from its firm backlog amid the repeated certification slips.

Airbus on June 11 unveiled the U760 Ravenstorm, an uncrewed collaborative combat aircraft, or 'loyal wingman,' designed to fly alongside crewed fighters for air-to-air combat, air-to-ground strike, and electronic-warfare missions. The reveal at the ILA Berlin air show headlined an expanded Airbus uncrewed-systems portfolio that also included the U145, an autonomous version of its H145 helicopter, and came the same day eight German firms launched the 'Team Gen 6' plan to build a sixth-generation fighter after the Franco-German FCAS program collapsed. The Ravenstorm positions Airbus to compete in the fast-growing market for autonomous combat drones that pair with next-generation fighters.

AST SpaceMobile announced on June 9 that BlueBird satellites 8, 9, and 10 are scheduled to launch June 17 aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral, with liftoff targeted for 2:39 a.m. EDT. The next-generation spacecraft are built to beam space-based cellular broadband — voice, data, and video — directly to standard, unmodified smartphones, and the simultaneous three-satellite launch helps the company rebuild momentum after its BlueBird 7 satellite failed to reach its intended orbit and was deorbited in April. AST is racing to grow the in-orbit fleet it needs for continuous U.S. coverage during 2026.

SpaceX began trading on the Nasdaq under ticker SPCX on June 12 after pricing its IPO at a fixed $135 per share, selling 555.6 million Class A shares to raise roughly $75 billion at a valuation near $1.77 trillion — the largest public offering ever, eclipsing Saudi Aramco's 2019 record. Demand was extraordinary, with reported total interest above $250 billion and an unusually large retail allocation of up to 30% of shares. The listing crystallizes the value of Starlink, which generated $3.26 billion in Q1 2026 revenue serving 10.3 million subscribers, while Elon Musk retains roughly 82% voting control.

Eight German aerospace and defense companies signed a 'Team Gen 6' strategic positioning paper at the ILA Berlin air show on June 11, formally committing to build the sixth-generation fighter at the core of a realigned Future Combat Air System. The signatories — Airbus Defence and Space, Autoflug, Diehl Defence, Hensoldt, Liebherr, MBDA Deutschland, MTU Aero Engines and Rohde & Schwarz — submitted their position paper to Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, urging Berlin to award contracts in full by the second half of 2026. The move comes three days after France and Germany agreed on June 8 to scrap the joint FCAS fighter, having concluded the deadlock between Airbus and Dassault Aviation could not be resolved.

Boom Supersonic is targeting the end of 2027 to ship the first five units of its Superpower ground turbines, founder and CEO Blake Scholl said at the AIAA AVIATION Forum on June 11. Each Superpower generates 42 megawatts — which Boom argues is enough to power the AI data centers being built across the U.S. — and the units are derived from the same core the company developed for the Symphony engines that will power its Overture supersonic airliner. Boom says it already holds about $1.2 billion in orders for the natural-gas turbines, an adjacent business line that monetizes its propulsion R&D ahead of Overture's entry into service.

Boeing handed over 60 commercial aircraft in May 2026 — its strongest month of the year, up from 47 in April — including 51 737 MAX jets, as the planemaker recovered from an earlier wiring issue that had crimped narrowbody output. The figures, reported in early June, leave Boeing's commercial backlog at roughly 6,758 aircraft and signal that its 737 production recovery is gaining pace, days after CEO Kelly Ortberg confirmed the company is studying a push toward a record 70 jets per month. Single-aisle jets dominated the month with 52 narrowbody deliveries.

NASA on June 9 named the four astronauts for Artemis III — commander Randy Bresnik, pilot Luca Parmitano (ESA), and mission specialists Frank Rubio and Andre Douglas — for a roughly two-week flight that will stay in low-Earth orbit to rendezvous and dock with both human landing systems before any crewed lunar landing. Administrator Jared Isaacman said Orion will link up with Blue Origin's Blue Moon and SpaceX's Starship landers to evaluate life support and other critical systems, with launch targeted as soon as late 2027. The plan turns the crewed test directly on the two companies' lander programs, both of which face hurdles — Blue Origin after the May 28 New Glenn pad explosion and SpaceX as it works to ready Starship for an orbital lander test.

Tesla secured back-to-back European approvals for Full Self-Driving (Supervised), with Denmark clearing the system on June 9 and Belgium following on June 10 to become the fifth EU country to authorize it for public roads — after the Netherlands (April 10), Lithuania (May 20), and Estonia (May 29). The rapid rollout came alongside Tesla's first localized European safety snapshot, showing FSD Supervised recorded about 3.5 times fewer collisions than manual driving on Dutch roads between April 10 and June 5. The data and approval push land just ahead of a June 30 EU-level discussion on broader recognition, though a bloc-wide green light remains further out.

Boeing on June 10 revealed a Block 3 version of its MQ-28 Ghost Bat collaborative combat aircraft at the ILA Berlin Air Show, adding a 25% larger wing that lifts maximum takeoff weight from about 10,000 to 12,000 pounds, enables more than 4,500 pounds of fuel and payload, and allows internal carriage of two AMRAAM missiles or four small-diameter bombs plus beyond-line-of-sight control. Boeing also expanded its German industry team, adding Diehl Defence and Rohde & Schwarz alongside Rheinmetall as it pursues an order from the Luftwaffe and aims to field the drone in Germany by 2029. The reveal builds on the more than 150 test sorties the Ghost Bat has flown in Australia and the United States.

Waymo on June 10 published peer-reviewed research in Nature Communications, developed with Delft University of Technology, introducing a Reference Driver (ReD) model that simulates how a careful, competent human anticipates and avoids crashes rather than only reacting at the last second. Built on the neuroscience concept of active inference, ReD models a driver's evolving beliefs and 'surprise' during a developing conflict, giving Waymo a more human-like benchmark to measure its Driver's collision-avoidance performance at scale. Waymo said it will release ReD as open-source software under a non-commercial academic license, a move that arrives as the company faces intensifying federal and media scrutiny over real-world incidents.

A federal magistrate judge, Susan van Keulen, ruled in early June that the core of Joby Aviation's trade-secret lawsuit against rival Archer Aviation and former Joby employee George Kivork can proceed — centered on a confidential real-estate developer agreement — while dismissing Archer's counterclaims in their entirety as 'impermissible shotgun pleadings,' with leave to amend by June 29. Both eVTOL developers claimed partial victory; Joby may amend its complaint by June 22, and the procedural reset keeps the closely watched corporate-espionage fight between the two leading U.S. air-taxi companies alive. The ruling lands as both race through FAA type certification ahead of planned 2026 commercial launches.

Waymo paid $220 million in a June 5 real-estate transaction to acquire a 5,458-acre autonomous-vehicle proving ground in Wittmann, Arizona — the facility Apple built for roughly $125 million in 2021 as the centerpiece of its now-cancelled Project Titan self-driving car program. The site includes a 115-acre city-simulation course, a vehicle dynamics area, a four-mile oval track, and a dedicated freeway course; Waymo told TechCrunch it will use the facility for rider-only testing, motion control validation, operational training workflows, and future testing expansion as it works toward 1 million paid robotaxi rides per week by year-end.

Alphabet's Wing and Walmart on June 9 announced what they called the world's largest-ever drone delivery expansion, adding Memphis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Diego, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Salt Lake City — seven metro areas at once — bringing the partnership to nearly 20 U.S. markets. The expansion is part of Wing and Walmart's plan to put drone delivery within reach of roughly 40 million Americans by 2027, and follows the partnership's milestone of surpassing 1 million total U.S. drone deliveries in May 2026.

LandSpace's Zhuque-2E Y6 rocket lifted off from the Dongfeng Aerospace Innovation Pilot Zone on June 9, successfully delivering the SpaceSail DTC 01 and China Mobile 02 satellites to their designated orbits — the eighth successful mission for the Zhuque-2 methane rocket family. The flight extends LandSpace's commercial launch cadence as China's leading private methalox operator while the company pursues its STAR Market IPO and works toward full first-stage recovery on the larger Zhuque-3.

BYD debuted the Sealion 6 — its first plug-in hybrid electric vehicle for India — on June 9, priced at approximately Rs 35–45 lakh (~$42,000–$54,000). The model uses BYD's DM-i Super Plug-in Hybrid powertrain, which claims a combined driving range of over 1,200 kilometres by prioritising the electric motor for urban commutes and switching to petrol for extended highway range — a formula targeted at Indian buyers hesitant to commit to pure EVs amid the country's still-developing fast-charging network.

Emad Dlala, a senior executive at Lucid Group who had recently been elevated to a leading role overseeing vehicle engineering strategy, departed the company on June 9 — the first major leadership exit since Silvio Napoli formally became CEO on June 1. As part of the restructuring under Napoli, the vice presidents of vehicle engineering and software will now report directly to him, tightening product control as Lucid pivots its strategic narrative around its Uber-backed robotaxi program and the upcoming Atlas-based midsize vehicle platform.

The U.S. Department of Defense published an updated Section 1260H list on June 8, naming 188 companies it says support China's military-civil fusion strategy — including EV giants BYD and NIO, humanoid-robot maker Unitree, and Alibaba, Baidu, CALB, EVE Energy, RoboSense, and TP-Link. The FY2024 NDAA prohibits DoD from contracting directly with any listed entity starting June 30, 2026 — fewer than three weeks away — with bans on indirect procurement through third parties following a year later; affected companies called the designations baseless and vowed legal action. The list had briefly appeared in the Federal Register in February before being unexpectedly withdrawn, making the June 8 republication official.

Rivian opened R2 Performance order invitations and demo drives at its retail spaces on June 9 as planned, but softened the delivery commitment — telling customers on X that first physical deliveries will start 'soon after' June 9 rather than on the day itself, with a 2-to-6-week window from order confirmation to delivery of the $59,485 Performance with Launch Package. Separately, the Rivian Adventure Network crossed 1,007 DC fast-charging stalls across 148 U.S. sites during launch week, with 97% of locations open to all EVs — a 40% year-over-year growth in stall count heading into the R2 era.

Booster B1067 launched 29 Starlink satellites from Cape Canaveral at 6:13 a.m. EDT on June 8, completing its record 35th trip to space and back — more flights than any orbital rocket stage in history, surpassing NASA's Space Shuttle orbiters at 39 missions per vehicle once landing is counted. The first stage landed on the droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas about eight minutes after liftoff, deployment was confirmed an hour later, and the active Starlink constellation grew to more than 10,580 satellites. The milestone came four days before SpaceX's planned Nasdaq debut on June 12 under ticker SPCX.

A CNN investigation published June 3, drawing on public records across Waymo's 11-metro footprint, found the company's robotaxis have run red lights, driven into closed and flooded roads, and blocked emergency responders — including a June 6 incident in Dallas where a Waymo was filmed on a deputy constable's body camera partially obstructing crews at a fatal apartment fire. Federal regulators are running at least five concurrent probes into Waymo, including the flooding incidents that triggered a 3,800-vehicle recall in May, illegal passing of stopped school buses, and a January crash that injured a child. Waymo said incidents are isolated and that no investigation has identified a systemic safety defect; the company's expansion plans across the U.S. and internationally remain on track.

At its May 28 vehicle intelligence event BYD announced it will assume full financial liability for at-fault crashes that occur while its God's Eye urban autonomous driving system is active — covering repairs to the owner's car, third-party property damage, and personal injury — making it the first major automaker to do so and setting a sharp contrast with Tesla, which has never accepted liability for FSD-active crashes. The guarantee applies to both God's Eye A and the LiDAR-equipped God's Eye B (a 12,000-yuan/~$1,770 option) across BYD's lineup, taking effect on new deliveries and extending to existing owners who update to God's Eye 5.0 over the air. The policy lands as BYD also rolls out the Xuanji A3 4nm smart-driving chip and reports record May overseas deliveries of 160,644 units.

Antares Nuclear's Mark-0 sodium heat-pipe microreactor achieved zero-power criticality at Idaho National Laboratory on June 4, 2026, becoming the first privately developed advanced reactor to reach that milestone under the Department of Energy's Reactor Pilot Program — a Trump executive-order initiative targeting at least three advanced reactor criticalities by July 4. The Mark-0 is fueled by HALEU TRISO compacts and uses a heat-pipe-cooled, fast-spectrum design initially targeting U.S. military bases, with commercial electricity sales targeted for late 2027 and full deployment by end of 2028 — at the same Idaho National Laboratory campus where Oklo is constructing its Aurora powerhouse under an NRC-issued combined construction and operating license. The DOE has selected eleven advanced reactor projects under the RPP, and the Antares milestone validates the regulatory testing infrastructure and fast-fission design path that underpins the broader U.S. advanced nuclear build-out.

The U.S. Space Force awarded Blue Origin its first NSSL Phase 3 Lane 1 task order on May 28, 2026 — hours before the New Glenn rocket exploded during a hotfire at Cape Canaveral's LC-36. Designated NRO Task Order-4, the award directs Blue Origin to launch a National Reconnaissance Office satellite from Cape Canaveral in the fourth quarter of 2027 or first quarter of 2028 under the lower-risk Lane 1 contracting track, which is reserved for missions that can accept greater launch risk than the military's most critical payloads. A May 29 Space Force press release confirmed the service remains a 'committed partner' with Blue Origin and that the ground-test explosion does not trigger automatic disqualification under Phase 3 program rules.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration opened preliminary investigation PE26004 on May 26, 2026, covering 114,922 Rivian R1S and R1T vehicles from model years 2022–2025 after two owners reported rear toe link bolts fracturing while driving, causing their vehicles to swerve across multiple lanes — one incident resulting in a collision with another vehicle and a roadside barrier. The probe arrives two weeks before Rivian begins R2 customer deliveries on June 9 and follows a January 2026 recall (26V-003) in which Rivian extended an improved toe-link service procedure to vehicles that had received prior service before a March 2025 instruction change. Rivian said internal data shows the joints are operating as intended and the complaints do not implicate the joint itself, but the company is cooperating with NHTSA's evaluation.

NASA's Lockheed Martin-built X-59 Quesst quiet supersonic research aircraft completed its first supersonic flight at Edwards Air Force Base on June 5, with test pilot Jim 'Clue' Less hitting Mach 1.1 (~713 mph) at 43,400 feet during an 81-minute sortie. The milestone produces the first real flight data NASA needs to seed an FAA and ICAO 'quiet thump' noise standard — the same regulatory pathway Boom Supersonic's Overture needs to fly cross-country routes — and lands as the House-passed Supersonic Aviation Modernization Act presses the FAA to revisit the 1973 overland supersonic ban.

JPMorgan on June 5 upgraded Tesla from Underweight to Neutral and raised its price target from $145 to $475 — a 227% revision — in the first major call from incoming lead auto analyst Rajat Gupta, who replaced longtime bear Ryan Brinkman in early May. Gupta's framework reframes Tesla as a vertically-integrated technology platform rather than an EV manufacturer, with robotaxi, Optimus, and FSD licensing projected to drive roughly half of an estimated $203B revenue base and $7.50 EPS by 2030, ending one of Wall Street's longest-running bearish institutional positions.

Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology's Qianfan megaconstellation crossed the 200-satellite mark on June 5 after CASC put up 36 satellites in 19 hours — a Long March 6A from Taiyuan on June 4 and a Long March 8 from Wenchang on June 5, each carrying 18 SSST-built spacecraft. SSST said the milestone is enough to begin supporting maritime Automatic Identification System services and accelerates buildout of China's flagship answer to Starlink, though Qianfan still needs to roughly triple its in-orbit fleet by year-end to hit its 324-satellite initial global coverage target.

Waymo and B2U Storage Solutions on June 4 unveiled a multi-year supply agreement to repurpose batteries pulled from Waymo's retired robotaxi fleet into utility-scale battery energy storage systems across California and Texas, with plans to deploy 'hundreds of megawatts' over the life of the partnership. The deal turns a previously stranded waste stream into grid services revenue, follows Waymo's late-May Ojai vehicle rollout and ~1,400 sq mi footprint expansion, and is the first publicly disclosed second-life battery pipeline of its scale at a commercial robotaxi operator.

Boeing is drafting plans to raise 737 production to roughly 70 jets per month, well above its publicly stated 63/month ambition, with CEO Kelly Ortberg telling CNBC on June 5 that the work is 'study activity right now' focused on supply-chain resilience. The exploratory ramp — first reported by The Air Current on June 4 — would close most of the gap with Airbus's 70-75/month A320neo-family target and comes days after the FAA cleared the 47/month capstone review on Renton, signaling Boeing now sees its constraint as supply rather than regulatory.

Airbus on June 5 reported 379 gross commercial aircraft orders and 81 deliveries for May 2026, capped by an AirAsia X firm order for 150 A220-300s — the largest single-customer A220 deal ever — and a 102-jet China Eastern Airways order (23 A320neos and 79 A321neos). The AirAsia deal carried a list-price tag of about $19B, made AirAsia the A220 launch customer for a new 160-seat cabin, and pushed the A220 family past 1,000 firm orders, with the A320 family backlog crossing 20,000 lifetime orders.

Tesla has slipped the public unveil of its long-promised next-generation Roadster to August or later, with The Information reporting on June 5 that the SpaceX-developed cold gas thruster system — internally code-named A71 — still needs more work after a late-April internal demo. The latest slip is at least the eighth Roadster delay since the 2017 prototype, dragged TSLA down 6.9% on Friday and put the stock on track for its worst week in a year amid broader demand and product-execution concerns.

SpaceX disclosed in an amended S-1 on June 5 that Alphabet's Google will pay it $920 million per month from October 2026 through June 2029 — about $30 billion — for roughly 110,000 NVIDIA GPUs, CPUs, memory, and related infrastructure routed through its Memphis Colossus 1 data center. Coming on top of a separate $1.25B/month Anthropic pact unveiled May 6 for the full ~220,000-GPU, 300 MW Colossus 1 capacity, the deal lifts SpaceX's disclosed AI-compute backlog to more than $70 billion and reframes the post-xAI-merger company as a major AI hyperscaler days before its planned June 12 Nasdaq debut under ticker SPCX.

Uber Technologies' wholly owned Neben Holdings subsidiary on June 2 disposed of 67,500,000 Class A shares of Aurora Innovation in a single block trade at $7.10 per share, raising about $479.25 million and trimming its Aurora stake by 14.46 percentage points to roughly 15.6% — disclosed in a Schedule 13D/A amendment. The sale comes weeks after Aurora widened its Sun Belt driverless freight network to 10 routes, opened a Phoenix terminal, and signed the 500-truck Hirschbach Driver-as-a-Service MOU, and follows Uber's earlier capital recycling out of its 2020 ATG stake.

WeRide, Uber and AVOMO on June 2 announced the launch of Spain's first commercial robotaxi pilot in the Region of Madrid, in collaboration with Madrid's regional government, with rides booked through the Uber app and AVOMO running fleet operations on WeRide's autonomous-driving platform. Service is slated to start later in 2026 with trained vehicle operators and scale toward fully driverless commercial coverage of central urban areas; Madrid is the fourth of 15 cities under WeRide and Uber's broader partnership, with 11 more planned by 2030.

SpaceX on June 3 set a fixed $135-per-share price for its Nasdaq IPO, targeting a roughly $1.77 trillion valuation and about $75 billion in proceeds — a deal that would dwarf Saudi Aramco's 2019 record to become the largest public offering in history. The investor roadshow kicked off June 4 with 555.6 million shares on offer, Goldman Sachs leading a syndicate including Morgan Stanley, BofA, Citi and JPMorgan, trading expected to start on Nasdaq under ticker SPCX on June 12, and Elon Musk retaining roughly 82% voting control after pricing.

Helion Energy on June 4 closed a $465 million Series G led by Thrive Capital at a $15.5 billion post-money valuation, lifting total funding to roughly $1.5 billion as the Everett, Washington startup races to deliver fusion electricity to Microsoft from its Orion plant in Malaga by 2028. New investors include Lux Capital, Peak XV Partners, Alta Park Capital, Anti Fund, BoxGroup and Ford Motor Executive Chairman Bill Ford, joining existing backers SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Lightspeed, Mithril, Capricorn and Good Ventures; the cash will scale manufacturing and feed the Polaris prototype and forthcoming Tiny Merge testbed campaigns.

X-energy on June 4 reported its first quarterly results as a public company, with Q1 2026 revenues and grant income of $43 million (up from $21M YoY), a $166.2M net loss, and $944M of cash at quarter-end that swells to about $2.05B once the roughly $1.1B in net IPO proceeds from its April 24 Nasdaq debut are included. Alongside the financials, X-energy disclosed the NRC's Finding of No Significant Impact for Dow's Seadrift advanced reactor project, a TRISO-X Part 70 fuel fabrication license, an MOU with IHI Corporation for HTGR components, and a graphite supply agreement with SGL Carbon.

NuScale Power announced on June 2 that it elected Dr. Dale E. Klein and Stuart A. Harshaw to its Board of Directors at the May 29 annual meeting of stockholders, expanding the board to nine directors with eight independent. Klein chaired the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2006 to 2009 and brings four decades of technical and regulatory experience as a UT Austin professor emeritus; Harshaw is president and CEO of Nickel Creek Platinum Corp. and a former senior Vale Canada nickel executive, adding nuclear-regulatory and capital-project depth as NuScale works to convert its RoPower, ENTRA1/TVA, and Framatome pipeline into firm orders.

Kazakhstan's Ministry of Emergency Situations on June 2 confirmed it will buy more Tesla Cybertrucks after the initial unit deployed in Almaty proved effective in mountain rescue operations, with Vice Minister Yerbolat Sadyrbayev citing its high mobility, quiet operation, and onboard electric power output. The decision adds to a Kazakhstan government fleet that already includes Cybertrucks used by the State Guard Service as mobile command-and-control vehicles during the May 15 Organization of Turkic States summit in Turkistan — an unexpected international government channel for a model that has otherwise struggled with U.S. consumer demand.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems on June 4 published a five-paper ARC Physics Basis in a special issue of Cambridge University Press' Journal of Plasma Physics, the most detailed public scientific case yet for a commercial-scale tokamak power plant. The papers use SPARC design lessons and state-of-the-art tools to project that ARC — CFS' planned Fall Line Fusion Power Station in Chesterfield County, Virginia — can produce roughly 1.1 GW of fusion power and deliver about 400 MW of continuous net electricity to the grid, validating the physics path to first electricity in the early 2030s.

Tesla on June 3 expanded its unsupervised Robotaxi service area to cover the entire Austin metropolitan region, more than doubling the previous geofence to include suburbs such as Pflugerville and Manor and opening up service on major highways including I-35. It is the fifth Austin expansion of the program and the largest jump since the June 2025 launch, even as the active driverless fleet stays at roughly 20 vehicles and the Dallas and Houston rollouts each remain stuck at single-digit cars.

X-energy on June 2 submitted its 80 MWe Xe-100 high-temperature gas-cooled reactor into the UK's Generic Design Assessment process, the regulatory gateway for new reactor designs in Britain. The filing is the first concrete step in X-energy and Centrica's joint plan to deploy up to 6 GW of new nuclear capacity in the UK and broadens the Xe-100 commercial slate alongside the Dow Seadrift project and the Amazon-backed Energy Northwest Cascade plant.

Blue Origin CEO Dave Limp said on June 2 that New Glenn will return to flight before the end of 2026 despite the May 28 hotfire explosion that wrecked the transporter-erector at LC-36, citing better-than-expected damage to the propellant farm, water tower, an additional flight-ready booster, and three upper stages staged nearby. Limp said the company will shift to an alternative vertical assembly path rather than wait for a new transporter-erector and ruled out skipping straight to the larger 9x4 New Glenn variant — keeping Blue Moon MK1 'Endurance' and the Amazon Leo NG-2 manifest within reach for 2026.

Goldman Sachs cut its NuScale Power price target to $9 from $10 (Neutral) and Citi cut to $7 from $9 (Sell), with both moves landing on June 3 amid a roughly 13% intraday slide and a wave of investor scrutiny following Q1 revenue of just $0.6M, a ~$44M net loss, and ~$316M of negative free cash flow. The downgrades come even as NuScale advances the 6-module RoPower project in Romania, a potential 6 GW ENTRA1/TVA program in the U.S., and an expanded Framatome fuel-supply deal — but underline how dependent the company's roughly $1B liquidity runway is on turning that pipeline into firm orders.

CASC's new partially reusable Long March 12B lifted off from Jiuquan at 4:40 a.m. EDT on June 1 in a no-notice maiden flight, successfully delivering two Genesat-built Qianfan broadband satellites — the constellation's 10th batch — to orbit. The 72-meter, 20-ton-to-LEO vehicle uses nine YF-102R kerolox engines on a 4.37-meter core and is designed for propulsive first-stage recovery, though the debut did not attempt a landing; the rocket is China's most capable commercial-class lifter to date and is expected to be a workhorse for the Shanghai-led megaconstellation.

At COMPUTEX Taipei on June 1, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Unitree announced the Isaac GR00T reference humanoid robot, combining Unitree's 1.8-meter, 68-kg H2 body (31 DoF) with Singapore-based Sharpa's 25-DoF dexterous hands and Nvidia's Blackwell-class compute and Isaac GR00T stack. The H2+ will be available starting in October, with initial deliveries going to AI labs including Allen AI, ETH Zürich, Stanford's Robotics Center, and UC San Diego — anchoring Unitree as Nvidia's flagship humanoid hardware partner just as the Chinese firm advances toward its Shanghai IPO.

Shanghai Stock Exchange's Listing Review Committee approved Unitree Robotics' STAR Market IPO on June 1, just 73 days after acceptance — the fastest STAR Market track in recent memory — clearing the path for what would be China's first listed humanoid-robot company. Unitree is targeting roughly RMB 4.2B (~$620M) in proceeds at a ~RMB 42B (~$6.2B) initial market cap and disclosed 2025 revenue of RMB 1.70B and net profit of RMB 278M on shipments of more than 5,500 humanoid robots.

Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy flew aboard a Beta Technologies ALIA vertical-takeoff aircraft at the company's Vermont headquarters on May 29, the DOT announced June 1 — the first time a sitting U.S. Transportation Secretary has flown in an eVTOL. The visit endorses Beta's role in the FAA's 26-state eVTOL Integration Pilot Program and is the highest-profile Trump-administration backing yet for advanced air mobility, with Duffy framing the technology as central to next-generation U.S. transportation.

Four Rocket Lab executives and directors filed combined sales of about $18M on June 1 following a May in which RKLB notched eight record-high closes, led by Slusky Ventures founder and director Alexander Slusky's $8.96M disposition of 60,000 shares and a $513,345 sale by President Brad Clevenger, with COO Frank Klein and General Counsel Arjun Kampani also unloading stock under 10b5-1 plans. The clip is the largest concentrated insider sale at the launch and space-systems firm since its 2021 SPAC, coming days after Q1 revenue topped $200M for the first time and as investors brace for the SpaceX IPO.

The U.S. Space Force on May 29 awarded SpaceX a $4.16 billion contract to build a constellation of low-Earth-orbit satellites carrying airborne moving target indicator (AMTI) sensors for the Trump administration's Golden Dome homeland missile-defense initiative. The single award — larger than the combined prototype contracts handed to every other Golden Dome bidder — lifts SpaceX's total Golden Dome book to roughly $6.45B and cements it as the program's primary commercial space-layer builder as procurement accelerates toward an initial operational layer.

BYD reported 383,453 NEV sales for May on June 1, edging up 0.26% year over year and ending eight straight months of declines, with sequential volume jumping 19.4% from April. Overseas sales surged 80.4% to a record 160,644 units — about 42% of total volume — as exports of the Dolphin Surf, Atto 2, and Seal U continue to drive the global push that is now offsetting persistent price pressure in BYD's domestic market.

NIO Inc. on June 1 reported May deliveries of 37,705 vehicles, its best month of 2026 — up 62.3% year over year and 28.4% from April — lifting cumulative deliveries past 1.148 million. The result was paced by 12,029 Onvo brand units (+124.8% MoM) on the new L80 large SUV ramp, with the just-launched ES9 flagship and Firefly's 5,663-unit performance pushing NIO's January–May total to 150,526 vehicles (+68.7% YoY).

Boeing said on June 1 it has completed radar cross-section testing on the MQ-28 Ghost Bat Collaborative Combat Aircraft, validating the unmanned wingman's low-observable design across azimuth, elevation, and roll inside its anechoic test chamber. The RCS data — gathered to inform customer survivability and detection-risk models — confirms the production design's stealth shaping and material choices and is another maturity marker for the Australia-led program now flying operationally in the United States.

Lucid Motors opened its Belgian test-drive center in Zaventem, near Brussels Airport, on June 2, making Belgium its fifth direct European market after Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, and Switzerland. The launch — anchoring the Air sedan and Gravity SUV — comes as interim CEO Marc Winterhoff says Lucid remains on track to enter seven or eight new European markets in 2026, with France and Denmark next in the pipeline.

Waymo on May 28 began offering trips in the Ojai, its first ground-up purpose-built robotaxi and the production vehicle for the company's 6th-generation Driver. Built by Zeekr and outfitted at Waymo's Arizona factory, the van starts service with about 100 vehicles in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix — joining a roughly 4,000-car commercial fleet — with public rides free for now as Waymo collects feedback and prepares to expand to Denver, Las Vegas, and San Diego.

At its May 28 intelligence strategy event BYD launched the Xuanji A3, an automotive-grade 4nm smart-driving SoC the company calls China's first, with a three-chip cluster delivering more than 2,100 TOPS to support L3 and L4 autonomous driving. Paired with BYD's next-generation God's Eye ADAS stack, the chip is already in mass production and gives the world's largest EV maker full-stack control of its assisted-driving hardware and software just as L3 features begin pushing into mainstream models.

The U.S. Department of Energy selected Oklo on May 26 for advanced negotiations under the Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program, alongside Exodys Energy, SHINE Technologies, Standard Nuclear, and Flibe Energy. Oklo will partner with European fast-reactor developer newcleo to convert U.S. surplus plutonium into MOX-style fuel for its Aurora powerhouse, strengthening Oklo's fuel-supply story for its planned Idaho National Laboratory deployment as the company sits on roughly $2.5B in cash after a 92% Q1 buildup.

Firefly Aerospace announced on May 26 that NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has awarded it a $75M subcontract to deliver four drones to the Moon's south pole on the MoonFall mission, targeted to launch no earlier than 2028. Firefly's Elytra transfer vehicle will carry the drones over a 45-day transit, enter lunar orbit, then deploy them about 50 km above the surface to survey terrain including permanently shadowed regions — an early operational piece of NASA's Moon Base initiative — as Firefly simultaneously launched a public stock offering the same day.

Hyundai Motor on May 29 launched 'School of Football,' a five-part social film series featuring Boston Dynamics' production Atlas humanoid running drills, executing a Rabona kick, and stumbling through training routines ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026, which kicks off June 11. Hyundai says every move was performed by Atlas without CGI, the highest-profile public showcase yet of the new commercial Atlas as Boston Dynamics ramps initial fleet shipments to Hyundai's RMAC factory in Georgia.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said on May 27 at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference that the company has passed the FAA's capstone review for the 737 MAX rate-47 production cap and is now running the Renton line at 47 jets per month, up from 42. Ortberg flagged a few months of stabilization at rate 47 before pushing toward 52 — and ultimately the long-stated ambition of 63 — as Boeing works through a record $695B backlog and Spirit AeroSystems integration.

Rivian confirmed on May 27 that customer deliveries, demo drives, and the first big wave of order invitations for the R2 midsize SUV will all start on June 9, locking in a date for its most important launch since the R1 line. The R2 enters the market in a Performance trim starting just under $60,000, with a Premium following later in 2026 and a $48,490 Standard variant due in 2027 — the platform Rivian is counting on to drive materially higher volume from Normal, Illinois ahead of the Stanton Springs, Georgia ramp.

The Shanghai Stock Exchange's Listing Review Committee is set to review Unitree Robotics' STAR Market IPO on June 1, just 73 days after accepting the application — an unusually fast track for what would be China's first listed humanoid-robot company, with the firm seeking to raise about 4.2 billion yuan (~$619M). The hearing comes despite a brutal Q1 in which Unitree's revenue jumped roughly 68% YoY to RMB 422.8M but adjusted net profit collapsed 52% to RMB 40.3M, as price competition with rivals like Tesla, Figure, and a wave of Chinese challengers compressed margins.

On May 26 Pony.ai reported Q1 2026 revenue of $34.3M, up 145% year over year, with robotaxi revenue rising 395% as fare-charging income jumped about 456%; the fleet topped 1,700 vehicles during the quarter. Off the back of those numbers, the company raised its 2026 year-end robotaxi fleet target from 3,000 to more than 3,500 vehicles and increased its 2026 robotaxi revenue target from 3x to more than 3.5x its 2025 level, widening its lead among Chinese L4 operators racing to scale fully driverless service.

Figure AI and Catalyst Brands — the parent of JCPenney, Aéropostale, and Brooks Brothers — announced a commercial agreement on May 26 to deploy Figure's next-generation humanoid robots in retail logistics, beginning at the Catalyst Brands Reno, Nevada Distribution Logistics Center. The robots will work alongside associates in the Joey Pouch sorting and induction system, marking one of the first publicly disclosed commercial deals to put humanoids inside a major U.S. retail distribution network and following Figure 03's recent week-long autonomous package-sorting marathon.

A New Glenn rocket erupted in a fireball at Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 36 around 9 p.m. EDT on May 28 during a static fire test, with no injuries reported but apparent damage to the pad's lightning towers and transporter erector. The vehicle was being prepared to launch 49 Amazon Leo broadband satellites as soon as June 4, and because LC-36 is Blue Origin's only New Glenn pad, the loss jeopardizes both Amazon's constellation timeline and AST SpaceMobile's BlueBird launches — AST stock fell roughly 17% on the news.

Hermeus said its Quarterhorse Mk 2.1 test aircraft hit Mach 1.21 (~930 mph) on its third flight from Spaceport America over the White Sands Missile Range, making it the first privately-developed unmanned aircraft to break the sound barrier and, by Hermeus's claim, the fastest unmanned jet flying today. The milestone came 364 days after Hermeus's Mk 1 maiden flight and roughly three months after Mk 2.1's first flight, validating the iterative build cadence behind the company's path to its Mach 5 Darkhorse military UAS.

The FAA on May 27 formally classified Starship Flight 12 — the May 22 debut of the upgraded Starship V3 — as a mishap and required SpaceX to complete an investigation before Flight 13 can fly. The Super Heavy booster failed to ignite all planned engines during its boostback maneuver, cutting the burn short, and the regulator will oversee SpaceX's report and any fixes before granting a modified launch license.

Texas's new autonomous-vehicle registration rule that took effect May 28 forced Tesla to disclose its in-state robotaxi fleet for the first time: 42 vehicles operating in Austin, compared with 577 automated vehicles registered by Waymo in the state. The numbers — nearly a year after Elon Musk launched the Austin service — quantify just how far Tesla still trails the autonomous-ride-hailing market leader as Waymo continues to expand into new metros and onto new vehicle platforms.

NIO formally launched its ES9 flagship executive SUV on May 27, tapping basketball icon Yao Ming as the model's Chief Experience Officer; deliveries began the next day. Priced from RMB 498,000 (about $69,000) or RMB 390,000 (~$54,000) under Battery-as-a-Service, the 5.36-meter ES9 is built on NIO's new 900V architecture with 5C ultra-fast charging plus 3-minute battery swap, and the launch sent NIO's U.S.-listed shares up roughly 10% on its first flagship release in more than two years.