Photo by Steve Jurvetson (CC BY 2.0)
The Boring Company
Born from a Musk traffic-jam tweet. Tunnels, flamethrowers, Las Vegas Loop, and the long-term hyperloop dream.
Photos
The Boring Company began as a tweet — one man's frustration with Los Angeles traffic turned into a $5.7-billion infrastructure startup. The pitch is seductively simple: tunnels are the only way to add transportation capacity to dense cities without demolishing what's above, and the cost of tunneling hasn't improved in decades because no one has cared enough to try. Las Vegas's casino strip is the first real-world test bed. Hyperloop and autonomous pod networks remain the long-range vision — if TBC can first prove it can bore faster and cheaper than any predecessor.
Founding Story
The Boring Company has the most literal founding story in the Musk portfolio. On December 17, 2016, Musk was sitting in Los Angeles traffic and posted to Twitter: 'Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging.' Three hours later: 'I am actually going to do this.' By the end of the week, the company was incorporated.
The initial capitalization came from merchandise: 20,000 baseball hats at $25 each, and 20,000 'Not-A-Flamethrower' propane torches at $500 each — $10 million raised through direct-to-consumer product sales to fund an infrastructure startup.
The Las Vegas Convention Center Loop — three stations, 1.7 miles, Tesla vehicles with human drivers — opened in June 2021. The Vegas Loop expansion of 65 stations and 29 miles under the Strip is the most ambitious urban tunneling project in American history. A hyperloop-style high-speed pods vision remains on the table for city-to-city connections.
Overview
The Boring Company began as a December 2016 Twitter quip ("Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel-boring machine and just start digging."), then incorporated within days. Initial funding came from selling 20,000 hats and 20,000 "Not-A-Flamethrower" propane torches. The company built a test tunnel at SpaceX's Hawthorne campus, opened the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop in June 2021 (3 stations, 1.7 miles, Tesla Model X/Y shuttles with human drivers — autonomous version delayed indefinitely), and began expanding the Vegas Loop to include strip casinos and the airport.
Elon's Role
Key Milestones
- Dec 17, 2016tweet
Founded via tweet
Musk announces the company on Twitter after sitting in LA traffic.
- Jan 29, 2018product
Not-A-Flamethrower goes on sale
20,000 units sold at $500 each; raised $10M for tunneling work.
- Dec 18, 2018product
Hawthorne test tunnel opens
Public unveiling of the 1.14-mile tunnel under SpaceX HQ.
- Apr 12, 2021funding
$675M Series C at $5.7B valuation
First major outside funding round.
- Jun 8, 2021delivery
Las Vegas Convention Center Loop opens
First public Boring Company tunnel. ~62-second cross-campus rides.
- Apr 26, 2022product
Vegas Loop expansion approved
Clark County approves 65-station, 29-mile expansion under Las Vegas Strip.
Notable Tweets
“Ok, we're going to do a flamethrower. It's not a flamethrower. It's totally not a flamethrower. Move on.”
Teaser for 'Not a Flamethrower'. 20,000 units at $500 sold out in under a week for $10M.
“The Boring Company's flamethrower is now referred to as a Toasted Marshmallow device”
After California concerns about selling flamethrowers, Musk renamed the product in all documentation.
“Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging…”
Tweeted from Musk's car while sitting in LA gridlock. Followed three hours later by 'I am actually going to do this' and 'It shall be called…
Predictions
We'll have a fully operational tunnel under LA within the next year or two.
The Hawthorne test tunnel opened December 2018 for media but was not publicly operational.
The Boring Company will build a high-speed loop from downtown Chicago to O'Hare in under 12 minutes.
The Chicago project was cancelled after Richard Daley's tenure ended. No tunnel was built.
The Boring Company will be operating tunnels in dozens of cities within 5 years.
As of 2024, only the Las Vegas Loop is operational. Multiple city projects have stalled.
