He did build the Boring Company:
Elon’s Biggest Boondoggle
Why did the world’s richest man spend the past five years trying to sell cities a hole in the ground?
Why did the world’s richest man spend the past five years trying to sell cities a hole in the ground?
nymag.com
Musk has never once proposed a mere tunnel. What he has proposed are infinite tunnels, a “3-D network of tunnels to alleviate congestion.” What Musk was officially selling the Sepulveda Pass audience was dozens and dozens of tunnels, stacked in layers below the city like a human habitrail. “Highways are at the outer limit of their capacity,” said Musk, as Gary the snail oozed beside him in agreement. “For tunnels, you can have hundreds of lanes. There’s no real limit.” No one that night asked how, say, building ten lanes of far more expensive tunnels would be any different than building ten lanes of freeway, which is what L.A. had already tried right there on the 405, spending $1.3 billion in 2013 to add one extra lane in each direction. It ended up luring so many more cars that it made rush-hour travel times even longer.
Instead, someone asked, via a preapproved question: When the tunnels were finished, would there be a party? Yes, Musk said. Everyone cheered.
As promised, there was a party; Grimes was in attendance, and Gary the snail was there, too (although it was, in all likelihood, not the same Gary). Musk stood in the green glow of the tunnel opening like an extraterrestrial delivering bad news as he returned to Earth: The team had run out of time, he explained; there were no pods and no electric skates. Guests were given stomach-turning rides in Tesla Model Xs that topped out at around 40 mph through an unpaved 1.14-mile tunnel. The Chicago contingency was not impressed. “A little bumpy,” alderman Gilbert Villegas told the Chicago Tribune. “There has to be a lot more questions answered before we can begin a type of project like that.” Alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa was even more cynical, telling The Verge, “If you look at Elon Musk’s career — he comes off as a grifter.” When Lori Lightfoot was elected mayor, she promptly killed the tunnel.
With the prospect of a 3D network of tunnels for hundreds of millions of dollars , Boring's test project spent tens of millions to deliver a bumpy unpaved 1.14 mile tunnel. In Las Vegas, the Boring Company promised an underground network allowing casino-goers unfettered movement between the convention center and underground across and around The Strip. Their 0.8 mile demonstration project delivered basically a parking garage and a ride on a Tesla in the tunnel for 49 million dollars.
A lot of sizzle and no steak.
But you know what, friends and neighbors? Somehow this underground bridge to nowhere is worth Billions. At least, it is on paper.
The Boring Company was recently valuated at
$5.7 billion.
.
prospect.org
