No one over the past few years has been more influential than Elon Musk to new and innovative ideas. Whether it is with his Space X program or Tesla car brand, he knows how to make a statement.
Now Musk wants to make it elsewhere.
Rather than doing anything in space, Musk is more concerned with going beneath the earth. He’s tweeted recently about his disdain for Los Angeles traffic, and it looks like he already has a solution: a tunnel!
Exciting progress on the tunnel front. Plan to start digging in a month or so.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2017
It’s a cryptic tweet and doesn’t explain much about his plans, but the assumption is that he wants to build in (or near) Los Angeles County’s Hawthorne, where SpaceX is based (via AP/Wall Street Journal):
The cryptic statements have launched speculation about another fantastic transportation idea from Musk, who builds orbital rockets at his Space Exploration Technologies company, better known as SpaceX, based in Hawthorne, California, near Los Angeles International Airport.
Another tweet indicated the starting point would be “across from my desk at SpaceX. Crenshaw (Boulevard) and the 105 Freeway, which is 5 mins from LAX.”
Here’s more speculation, from the Los Angeles Times:
Perhaps Musk intends to dig only below property leased by SpaceX, known formally as Space Exploration Technologies Corp. The Hawthorne facility is owned by Chambers Street Properties, which bought it in 2014 for $46 million. Chambers Street Properties did not respond to a request for comment.
In December, Musk talked about his tunneling venture, “The Boring Company”, that had a mission statement saying, “Boring is what we do.”
There is a lot of mystery around it, which is exactly what Musk wants. And we know what we know he doesn’t want: painfully annoying Los Angeles traffic.