Elon Musk still claims he’s serious about boring tunnels

Elon Musk: billionaire, entrepreneur, and man with a Twitter account. It’s a lethal combination that means when Musk tweets, we must ask questions. Namely: is he serious?

Last month, the SpaceX CEO sent out a string of tweets complaining about traffic. He suggested that a possible solution might be to start a tunnel-digging firm called — wait for it — The Boring Company, following it up by saying “I am actually going to do this,” and updating his bio to read: “Tesla, SpaceX, Tunnels & OpenAI.” This morning, he repeated the claim, and even assured a questioner that he was, in fact, serious.

But is he?

The thing is, the idea of building tunnels to “solve” traffic sounds, on the face of it, no wilder than Hyperloop or a mission to Mars. By which I mean: it might be technically possible, but the logistical headaches involved mean there has to be serious will (and money) behind any efforts. Do we think Musk is really going to build a tunnel from his desk at SpaceX, as one tweet suggested? No.

More plausible explanations for Musk’s interest in tunnels include the fact that, with President Trump’s pledge to fund infrastructure, starting a boring company now might be a lucrative idea. Or it’s just a joke — related, perhaps, to Trump’s plans to build a border wall with Mexico. After all, in the same Twitter sesh Musk also said his “neural lace” required for our conversion to cyborgs would be announced next month. It’s clear the man has a sense of humor.

We’ve messaged Musk to ask what’s going. Fingers crossed he’ll be a little more serious in his DMs than his tweets.