SpaceX

Elon Musk and Grimes are calling it quits ... they've broken up after 3 years of dating.

The SpaceX and Tesla honcho says he's "semi-separated" from Grimes ... though he says they are still on good terms and are co-parenting their 1-year-old son, the famously named, X Æ A-Xii Musk.

Elon reportedly told Page Six he and the Canadian singer still love each other and they are all living under the same roof, albeit in different rooms.

The former couple made a public appearance together at the Met Gala earlier this month, as well as back in 2018. It's unclear what exactly led to the split.

It's possible their careers are getting in the way -- Elon's busy running tech empire, which requires lots of travel to Texas and Europe, and Grimes is working in L.A. as a judge on the new FOX show, "Alter Ego."

As we reported ... Grimes gave birth to their baby boy in May 2020.

The all-civilian space mission that Elon Musk and co. sent up into orbit is officially a success -- because the 4-man crew is back home ... and TMZ is streaming the crew member pickup live.

The team, known as Inspiration4, re-entered our planet's atmosphere Saturday in a Dragon capsule -- getting burnt up badly as it barrels down to Earth, to be expected in these types of voyages. Luckily, there was some major parachuting going on to slow this puppy down ... and the spacecraft safely landed in the Atlantic, off the coast of Florida.

Before they touched down ... it looks like the crew was watching some appropriate Mel Brooks content -- during the livestream, you could see one of the normie astronauts streaming "Spaceballs" on a small monitor in front of 'em. Good stuff!

Anyway, when they finally did make contact -- it made for a dramatic splash. Not too dramatic though ... SpaceX had rescue ships at the ready to pick up the passengers and take them back to shore -- which they're in the middle of doing now. It went about as as smoothly as one could hope for.

Remember, billionaire Jared Isaacman led the mission ... alongside Chris Sembroski, Dr. Sian Proctor and Hayley Arceneaux, all of whom have been zipping around the planet for a few days straight -- confined to the seats in the small space of their capsule.

Yes, that means they had to use the same toilet ... and refrain from showers. The fact they pulled it off opens the door for space tourism in the near future -- a whole new chapter many of us never thought possible.

These four individuals had to go through rigorous training to be in shape to be blasted off toward the stars -- but if you can get through that (and pay the high price tag) ... it's definitely something you can check off your bucket list in your lifetime.

Elon Musk's space company just made history ... the first ever, all-civilian spaceflight is way up above our planet ... and they blasted off without any astronauts.

Billionaire Jared Isaacman, a pilot himself, is leading the mission dubbed Inspiration4 ... and it looks like he's already having a blast up there in space with the rest of his lucky space tourists.

Chris Sembroski, Dr. Sian Proctor and Hayley Arceneaux took off with Jared in a SpaceX Dragon capsule Wednesday night ... blasting into space using a Falcon 9 rocket, which launched from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

As you can see ... the space tourists were clapping and celebrating as they took off into space, breaking the speed of sound on the way up, while those in mission control back home were hyped too.

Now that they're in orbit, Jared and co. will be in space for the next 3 days, zipping around Earth about once every 90 minutes and enjoying the views.

As we first told you ... Jared told us back in February he was most looking forward to overriding the automatic pilot and taking Dragon for a spin up in space.

BTW ... the civilian crew will be sleeping in the same reclining seats you saw them in on the launch ... and they've got to share a toilet and forego showers.

Elon Musk's a billionaire with modest taste ... just check out his tiny digs in Texas.

The Tesla chief is living it up in this pre-fabricated casita near his SpaceX headquarters in Boca Chica, Texas. The entire thing's a whopping 375 square feet ... with 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom as well as a living room and kitchen.

Yup, there's a dishwasher and even a washing machine.

Las Vegas-based Boxabl is selling the houses for a cool $49,500. The company tried its best to be subtle about scoring Elon as a customer -- it announced back in November it installed one of its pre-fab cribs in Boca Chica for a "top secret customer."

The company's founder, Galiano Tiramani, had said it was "pretty exciting to have these guys as our initial customer." He didn't confirm the house was built for Elon himself but, just a couple of months ago, Elon confirmed in a tweet he was, in fact, living in the tiny home and renting it from SpaceX.

It should come as no surprise that one of the world's richest men can pull strings for this tiny house, which reportedly has a 47,000-person waitlist.

Ground control to Major Jeff ... you sure you really want to do this, sir???

Jeff Bezos says he's heading to space as part of the first crewed flight on a rocket ship made by his aerospace company, Blue Origin. The Amazon CEO will be joined on the crew by his younger brother, Mark, who he calls his best friend.

Bezos says he's dreamed of traveling to space ever since he was 5 years old, and he's going to turn that dream into reality on July 20 in a rocket ship called New Shepard.

The plan is for Jeff and Mark to join the auction winner for a seat on the 6-seat capsule and go on an 11-minute journey in the 59-foot rocket that will reach more than 60 miles above Earth.

As of now, the highest bid for a spot on New Shepard is approaching $3 million.

Bezos -- the world's richest person with a net worth of $187 billion -- will be the first among the billionaires with a space company to actually take a ride aboard the technology he's spent a fortune developing.

Elon Musk's SpaceX is doing some incredible things, but so far he's not announced any plans to travel to space himself. Richard Branson has said he will board Virgin Galactic's rocket-powered plane ... but that's not scheduled until later this year.

So, Jeff's going first, and it must be said -- this is an incredibly dangerous adventure and for someone with so much to lose, it'll be interesting to see how he prepares for it ... physically, mentally and, of course, financial planning.

Hidden within this stretched-out snap is a businessman known for making headlines.

This father of 7 has made waves as the founder of SpaceX and the CEO of Tesla Motors.

Aside from his business ventures, this famous fella has even guest-starred as himself on a number of shows such as "The Big Bang Theory," "South Park," "Rick and Morty" and even recently hosted "Saturday Night Live."

Elon Musk cast doubt on Dogecoin during 'SNL' -- but now, it seems his company is trying to take that back ... by sending a satellite to the moon ... funded exclusively by the cryptocurrency.

A company called Geometric Energy Corporation announced Sunday that they'll be launching an 88-lb cube to the moon sometime in early 2022 ... with the help of none other than SpaceX, Elon's pride and joy for space exploration. SpaceX confirmed the news, BTW.

They say this is gonna be the first-ever commercial lunar payload that's paid for entirely with Doge ... meaning, SpaceX is accepting the crypto from Geometric -- which will presumably fundraise/buy Dogecoin for this mission ... one they're calling DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon.

The cube -- which will be equipped with high-tech cameras/sensors to help obtain "lunar-spatial intelligence" upon touchdown -- is flying passengers aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Elon hasn't commented on the momentous moment just yet -- but one of his SpaceX execs did. Tom Ochinero, the Vice President of Commercial Sales, says ... "This mission will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency beyond Earth orbit and set the foundation for interplanetary commerce." He adds, "We're excited to launch DOGE-1 to the Moon!"

Two things about this -- one, it looks like Elon wasn't kidding in April when he said SpaceX would be sending an actual Dogecoin to the moon. Also, this appears to be major damage control after Elon agreed with Michael Che Saturday, saying Dogecoin was a "hustle."

That comment helped send the meme coin plummeting ... losing upwards of 37% of value in a matter of minutes. Now, it looks like they're trying to re-legitimize it once more.

Here it is ... your first chance to judge Elon Musk's "Saturday Night Live" hosting skills, and he's leaning into the idea it could be total chaos. Or, just another 'SNL.'

In the first promos for his gig, the Tesla and SpaceX founder is kinda acknowledging all the buzz about him being the show's first controversial host in quite some time. As the polarizing figure himself puts it ... he's a "wild card" who could do just about anything.

Musical guest Miley Cyrus was by his side, but cast star Cecily Strong delivered the punchlines with a reminder their moms will be in the audience because it's a Mother's Day show.

In a second spot, Elon brags about SpaceX's most recent successful rocket launch ... and again, Cecily gets the punchline about doing her laundry. Pretty standard 'SNL' stuff.

Of course, a lot of people -- 'SNL' fans and even some cast members -- have expressed disapproval of one of the richest people in the world, who's not an entertainer, hosting.

However, other SNL stars like Pete Davidson and Michael Che have publicly supported Musk hosting and claim there's no issue among the cast ... and SNL alum Conan O'Brien told us this week that it's pretty common for non-professional comedians like Elon to end up being the best hosts.

Here's a skit for Elon Musk on 'SNL' -- terrified Los Angelenos staring into the sky thinking aliens finally arrived to take them away ... only to discover it's just Elon's new space toys.

Yeah, people in L.A. were freaking out Wednesday night when they saw a string of lights moving across the sky in unison. The freakout was in full effect for those who happened to be looking up, and many turned to Twitter (naturally) for answers.

One person tweeted, "Did anyone else see a strand of moving lights above Los Angeles tonight?" ... followed by an alien emoji. If you're in L.A. and reading this, you've probably figured out there's no invasion. Yet.

What really happened is SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying 60 of its satellites earlier this week. It was the second such launch in less than a week ... giving SpaceX well over 1,000 satellites up there.

The new ones had just deployed on Wednesday afternoon, and as astronomer Dr. James Davenport put it ... "They were still in low orbit, and they were still clustered together so we call this like the Starlink train."

He added, "You see like a little chain of satellites all close together reflecting sunlight back at us."

The launch itself also freaked out people all over the West Coast last week.

People in Washington and Oregon reacted to the lights and also figured aliens were invading!!!

There was a spectacular site above the Gulf of Mexico early Sunday, when the SpaceX Dragon capsule careened and then floated into the sea with 4 astronauts on board.

The 4 astronauts -- 3 from the U.S. and 1 from Japan -- ended their 167-day mission ... the longest ever for a crew capsule launching from the United States.

The Dragon capsule -- named Resilience -- had a welcoming party at the ready. Several ships were nearby to recover the capsule and the astronauts. It was a perfect landing, judging by how close the capsule touched down next to the ships.

The seamen jumped into action and recovered the spaceship in a half an hour. Some people were so impressed with the speed, they likened it to a pit stop at a car race.

The folks at Mission Control were ecstatic ... sending a message to astronauts ... “We welcome you back to planet Earth and thanks for flying SpaceX. For those of you enrolled in our frequent flyer program, you’ve earned 68 million miles on this voyage.”

Spacecraft Commander Mike Hopkins was more than willing to accept the perk ...“We’ll take those miles. Are they transferrable?”

Elon Musk's got real estate agents working overtime deep in the heart of Texas, because with just one tweet he's made the yet-to-be-built city of Starbase a hot relocation destination.

You'll recall the SpaceX honcho basically said he's leaving a light on for any and everyone who wants to move to the Brownsville/South Padre area, work for SpaceX and become a resident of the brand new city he's planning to put on the map.

As it turns out ... people took Elon's tweets as marching orders.

We spoke to agents in the area who say there is a direct correlation between Elon's tweets and an increase in real estate customers. In fact, one agent we spoke to called it "the Elon Musk effect" ... and for good reason.

Shortly after Elon's post, one agent tells us he got a call from a man in Boston inquiring about a rental property in Brownsville. Another agent who's worked in the area for nearly 2 decades said 2 years ago he'd never answer calls from outside of his area code.

Now? Not picking up could be the difference between earning or losing a fat commission. Like on Tuesday, when a man from Oregon called offering to pay $200k in cash for a house in Brownsville. The average median house price in the area is around $167k.

One agent who says he's already sold 7 houses to SpaceX employees says calls keep rolling in from all over the country ... from Illinois and North Dakota to California and Utah. And, if you're curious about Elon's reach? The agent says he got a call from someone in Kenya! It's good to be the richest man in the world.

Elon Musk has some expensive bugs to fix -- another unmanned test flight of a SpaceX rocket he hoped would go to Mars went up in flames.

SpaceX nearly completed the successful test flight Wednesday at its facility in South Texas. The plan is for this prototype spacecraft, called SN10, to eventually venture all the way to Mars -- but several minutes after a clean launch and return trip to Earth ... it exploded.

SN10's launch was delayed due to a sputtering engine earlier in the day, but fired up for lift-off around 3 PM PT. It completed its route -- which wasn't meant to go too far up -- and touched down again, seemingly without a hitch.

The official SpaceX broadcast cut out before folks at home could see it blow up, but other streams that were monitoring the action live sure caught the blast.

You can hear someone who was watching it talk about a methane leak, but SpaceX has not said what caused the blast.

We've seen this before with SpaceX's Starship test flights -- this exact thing happened last year at the same facility ... with the same result.

They gave it another go just last month, and the results were identical ... fireballs. Again, these were all unmanned launches.

Elon Musk hasn't taken over the world yet but, for now, he'll settle on taking over a piece of Texas ... 'cause he approached officials about founding his own city and calling it Starbase.

The Tesla chief and SpaceX honcho is so serious ... he hit up Cameron County, Texas officials about incorporating the City of Starbase, Texas. It's familiar territory for him ... SpaceX has a private launch site and rocket production facility there.

The idea is ...the rocket man will expand the unincorporated region currently known as Boca Chica Village. His plans aren't all that far-fetched ... county judge Eddie Treviño, Jr. has now weighed in, saying, "If SpaceX and Elon Musk would like to pursue down this path, they must abide by all state incorporation statutes. Cameron County will process any appropriate petitions in conformity with applicable law."

That's politics talk for ... go for it, but you'll play by our rules. Elon's ambitions know no bounds. He previously tweeted about founding Starbase ... adding the town's leader "shall be The Doge" ... a nod to the cryptocurrency DogeCoin he backed last month.

Elon's slowly but surely making his mark in the Lone Star State. For starters, he said last December he was moving from California to Texas ... and SpaceX has other facilities in Brownsville and McGregor.

What's more ... his company reportedly wants to break ground on a new manufacturing facility in Austin ... and his other company, The Boring Company, went on a hiring spree in the Austin area back in November.

Everything's rosy for Elon Musk's Starship spacecraft, except for those damn crash landings -- but somehow his engineers are keeping a remarkably positive outlook.

SpaceX's latest unmanned test flight of Starship -- designed to ferry cargo and people to the Moon and Mars -- ended Tuesday the same way it did in December ... with a fireball.

We'll say this ... the reusable capsule looked beautiful on the way up ... but it's that return flight that gets tricky. It's supposed to land vertically, but instead, it came down at an angle and burst into flames.

Bummer right? Not at mission control, where the mushroom cloud didn't stop an engineer from getting out his pom-poms to cheer up the team.

As the smoke was still rising, he bellowed, "Another great test flight" ... described everything that went right and then deadpanned, "We've just to work on that landing a little bit."

There's good reason for Captain Obvious to be so optimistic. Elon predicted Starship's initial test flights would likely crash land, and the primary objective is gathering data. See? Mission accomplished!!!

Elon Musk's handing over the keys to a SpaceX rocket to Jared Isaacman -- a billionaire himself, and pilot who's preparing to lead the first-ever, all-civilian spaceflight.

Jared joined us on "TMZ Live" Tuesday and told us all about the historic mission set to blast off this October, and what he's looking forward to most once he and 3 other civilians get into orbit.

Elon announced Monday Jared will be Commander for the trip, and he's already started some hands-on training for the SpaceX Dragon capsule. Sounds like he'll be ready to override the automatic pilot, if necessary, but don't worry ... he's an accomplished pilot with a flying speed record to his name.

It's pretty cool ... Jared's bringing 3 other civilians to space for a multi-day trip around the Earth, and he tells us how 2 lucky people can snag spots on the capsule by donating to a great cause.

For now, Isaacman Rocketman's trying to stay grounded and take the mission preparations day by day -- but you can tell he's champing at the bit to get some serious pilot bragging rights.

SpaceX is proving rocket launches never get old, because its latest mission had the precision of ... well, the Rockettes.

The spacecraft shook the ground Sunday at Cape Canaveral in Florida. The mission hurled a bunch of small satellites from both the government and private sectors. There was also SpaceX's Starlink broadband satellite.

The launch was originally set for last month, but was postponed for various reasons. It was scheduled to blast off Saturday, but Mother Nature had other ideas.

What's really amazing ... this is the 5th time the booster was used to rocket SpaceX payload into orbit. It made a perfect, bullseye landing. Really incredible.