Fatman17
Moderator
In 2016, Elon Musk casually spent $300M digging a tunnel underground.Wall Street laughed: “It’s just a publicity stunt.”
Today? That “stunt” is worth $100B+.
Here’s the wild story of The Boring Company the project Musk started as a joke tweet… that may end up solving traffic forever.
It began with frustration.
Stuck in LA traffic, Musk fired off a tweet in Dec 2016:
“Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging.”
People thought he was trolling.
Two weeks later, The Boring Company was born.
Mission: dig tunnels to end gridlock.
At first, nobody took him seriously.
Analysts mocked: “This is a distraction. A PR stunt.”
But Musk spotted what others ignored:
Tunneling tech was outdated
Costs were insane ($1B per mile)
Machines hadn’t improved in decades
His plan: reinvent the industry.
Step one? Buy a second-hand boring machine and start experimenting.
Step two? Fund it in the most Musk way possible.
In 2017, the company raised $112.5M.
$100M came from Musk’s pocket.
The rest? From selling 20,000 flamethrowers at $500 each.
Wall Street rolled its eyes. Musk doubled down.
By 2018, the first test tunnel in Hawthorne, California, was complete.
Cost: $10M per mile.
Traditional tunnels: $1B per mile.
That’s a 99% cost cut.
How? Smaller tunnels + continuous digging tech.
Now it wasn’t a joke anymore.
In 2019, Vegas called.
The Boring Company won a $48.7M contract under the Convention Center.
By 2021, it was finished fast, cheap, and functional.
The “publicity stunt” suddenly had proof of concept.
Investors woke up.
In 2021, the company raised $675M at a $5.7B valuation.
Then came the twist.
By 2023, it wasn’t just about cars.
Musk pivoted to utility tunnels: water, power, internet fiber.
Valuation: $127B.
Today:
Projects are running in Vegas, Texas, Florida.
Cities worldwide want in.
The total market? Trillions.
From one frustrated tweet → to Musk’s most valuable company yet.
Lessons:1. “Dumb” ideas can become billion-dollar revolutions.
2. Ignore the crowd. Persist.
3. Innovation can transform even the most boring industries.
So… next time you’re stuck in traffic and have a “crazy” idea?
Don’t dismiss it.
It could be your $127B moment.
