Elon Musk: To Eliminate Traffic “I’m Going to Build A Machine and Just Start Digging”

"Boring, it's what we do."

By Cecille De Jesus

Updated

climate change elon musk
Image: Reuters

Tunnels (Seriously)

At the Hyperloop Pod Competition’s first phase in January this year, Elon Musk mentioned a proposition to lighten traffic conditions.

“It’s a really simple and obvious idea and I wish more people would do it: build more tunnels. Tunnels are great. It’s just a hole in the ground, it’s not that hard. But if you have tunnels in cities you would massively alleviate congestion and you could have tunnels at all different levels – you could probably have 30 layers of tunnels and completely fix the congestion problem in high-density cities. So I strongly recommend tunnels.”

But as time has proven over and over, when Musk wants something done, he’ll find a way to get it done. And if he can’t have other people do it, he’ll do it himself. While the SpaceX CEO is prone to goofing around with his Twitter posts, he has now posted a series of tweets showing how he might just be serious about building a company dedicated to boring tunnels to alleviate traffic congestion.

 He even went so far as to update his professional headline to include tunnels: “Tesla, SpaceX, Tunnels (yes, tunnels) & OpenAI.”

It’s Gonna Be Boring

While this might seem like the Bored
Elon Musk Twitter account gone rogue, Musk continued. He wrote that the tunnel digging company will be named “The Boring Company,” a funny take on its literal purpose, as is its tagline: “Boring, it’s what we do.”

Despite hurdles in his space programs, Musk’s SpaceX has been crossing out one milestone after another throughout the year. A tunnel digging company would seem less complex compared to his space-bound projects. And if he is serious about it, this Earth-based venture may also prove useful in developing infrastructure to aid our colonization of Mars—where the atmosphere is unsuitable for life and underground habitats could help shelter settlers from the harsh conditions of the Red Planet.