Elon Musk on SpaceX: Starship's switch to stainless steel and new alloys
Musk explained the engineering rationale behind Starship's stainless steel construction, noting SpaceX has since developed proprietary alloys and moved away from 301 stainless steel.
August 23, 2026 at 8:05 PM UTC
Elon posted that Starship was switched to stainless steel, and that SpaceX has since created its own new alloys and no longer uses 301 stainless steel.
This is why I switched Starship to stainless steel. We have since created our own new alloys and no longer use 301.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 23, 2026 at 8:05 PM UTC
Posts from Elon Musk’s X profile on 2026-08-23. Text is verbatim; each embed links to the original post on X.