Musk Follow Tracker — Issue #23: The Chip Engineer and the AI Filmmaker

After five consecutive zero-change days (Issues #19–22), June 4 UTC delivered two new follows in under three minutes — both arriving at 14:56–14:58 UTC on what happened to be Day 1 of the SpaceX IPO roadshow. The pair couldn't be more different in profile, but together they map cleanly onto SpaceX's two biggest public stories of the week: a $55 billion semiconductor factory in Texas and an AI-generated movie trailer that drew 18.4 million views.

Follow count: ~1,354 (net +2 from Issue #22's ~1,352)

Heavy Pulp is a one-person AI creative studio with 43K followers on X, run by a filmmaker who produced an indie feature in 2020 for roughly $300,000. The account describes itself as "Freshly Squeezed Visual Amalgamations" and has spent the past year building a steady audience with AI-generated videos, concept art and music.1

On June 3, Heavy Pulp published a 40-second AI-generated trailer reimagining Homer's Iliad — siege of Troy, burning cities, battlefield speeches — using Grok Imagine 1.5, xAI's latest video generation model. The clip crossed 18.4 million views, a significant number by the standard of AI art demos.2 Musk posted it on his own timeline with the caption "Iliad (Troy) trailer made by Grok Imagine 1.5, which was just released," then replied asking Heavy Pulp: "Want to make a full movie?" Heavy Pulp replied "Hey, count me in!" — and Musk followed the account roughly 14 hours later.3

The account has been publicly testing Grok Imagine features and tracking AI video generation quality for months. Heavy Pulp's own framing is candid: after spending $300K on a conventional film, it finds AI tools let it build comparable visuals at a fraction of the cost.

John Federspiel has just 572 followers and 12 lifetime posts — a nearly silent account. His account creation date is September 2012, verified status, and essentially no public activity until June 4, when he retweeted Musk discussing the Terafab project.4

The reason the account has suddenly become visible: on June 3, Federspiel appeared before Grimes County commissioners in Anderson, Texas as the public face of SpaceX's Terafab semiconductor project. Identifying himself as head of Terafab, he told the court: "We recognize that large projects bring legitimate questions" and confirmed SpaceX's commitment to local infrastructure.5 The FT described him as "director of SpaceX's Starlink satellite group."6

Grimes County ultimately approved a 35-year, 100% property tax exemption for the Terafab project despite fierce local opposition.7 The facility — initially described at $55 billion and now cited by some sources at $119 billion — is planned as a Starlink chip manufacturing plant and one of the largest semiconductor investments in U.S. history.8

Federspiel retweeted Musk on June 4, drawing attention to the Terafab-Texas connection on IPO roadshow day. Musk followed him within hours.

The timing of both follows against the IPO roadshow is hard to ignore.

The @johnfederspiel follow fits a pattern this channel has tracked throughout the SpaceX IPO buildup: Musk following internal operators who step into public view at critical moments. Federspiel's court appearance on June 3 — the day before roadshow launch — put him on the record as a named executive advocate for a $55–119 billion capital project with direct relevance to Starlink's chip supply chain. Following him the next morning, on roadshow Day 1, reads as an endorsement of that visibility at exactly the moment investors are evaluating SpaceX's manufacturing ambitions.

The @heavypulp follow is different in nature but consistent with a second thread: Musk has repeatedly followed AI creators who use xAI's own tools to produce something he considers worth showing. @eliebakouch (Issue #22, June 3 UTC) was followed for technical analysis; Heavy Pulp was followed for output. The follow came after Musk posted the trailer and publicly invited a collaboration — so this functions less like a standard discovery follow and more like closing the loop on a conversation that already had an audience of tens of millions.

Day 1 of the SpaceX IPO roadshow kicked off June 4 with the company pitching a $1.77–1.78 trillion valuation and up to $86 billion in proceeds, targeting a Nasdaq listing under ticker SPCX around June 12.9 The S-1 shows 2025 revenue of ~$18.7 billion with a widening net loss; Q1 2026 revenue was $4.69 billion (+15% YoY), while the quarterly net loss widened to $4.27 billion.10

Morningstar has separately valued SpaceX at $780 billion — less than half the roadshow target — citing uncertainty in its AI and Starlink businesses, which means investor appetite at $1.77T is entirely dependent on buying into the long-dated AI infrastructure narrative.11

The Terafab chip plant — now with its Texas tax deal locked in — is one of the concrete capital deployment stories SpaceX can point to. Federspiel's public court appearance, and Musk following him on roadshow Day 1, puts a face on that story at the moment it matters most to institutional investors.

Open item: @ddueri0 (Daniel Dueri) identity still unresolved — private account, 0 tweets, April 2026 creation. No new information this issue.

Issue #8 ghost unfollow remains open.