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Elon Musk’s Boring Company shows off a very complete looking test tunnel in latest teaser image

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The Boring Company recently shared an image of a section of its test tunnel under Hawthorne, CA, giving fans its clearest look yet.

With “rings on rings“, The Boring Company’s tunnels are anything but boring. In a request for tax exclusion submitted to the California Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority last December, the tunneling startup stated that it intends to develop and use a new type of concrete for its tunnel linings.

The Boring Company’s tunnel under Hawthorne, CA. [Credit: The Boring Company/Twitter]

According to the tunneling startup’s filings last December, “advanced materials” would be used to manufacture the tunnels’ concrete walls. The concrete that will be used in the tunnels themselves will not be regular concrete, as the Boring Co. is designing the material to reach strengths in excess of 6,500 pounds per square inch. The concrete being developed by the company is also designed to be capable of fully setting in just 1-7 days, far quicker than the 28 days usually required by conventional concrete.

With this special formulation, The Boring Company expects to produce concrete tunnel linings that are incredibly dense, less permeable, and fully resistant to corrosion. A fully-automated carousel system to transport and set the concrete rings on the tunnels without human assistance is also being planned. With such a system in place, the Boring Co. is expecting to complete its tunneling projects faster.

While the Boring Company is arguably a hobby for the ultra-busy Elon Musk, and while the company courts fun headlines over its unique merchandise such as the Not-a-Flamethrower and the Boring Bricks (an Ice Blaster is said to be on the way), the startup does have the potential to be just as disruptive in the tunneling industry as Tesla is to the automotive market. During the company’s Information Session back in May, Elon Musk noted that the Boring Company is aiming to drill and lay tunnel walls simultaneously while transporting dirt using battery-powered locomotives. These locomotives will feature Tesla technology, with the machines being powered by two Model 3 electric motors.

The potential disruption of the Boring Company in the public transportation industry appears to have been one of the key factors behind the startup’s selection as the contractor of choice for Chicago’s planned downtown-O’Hare high-speed transport project. The bidding for the high-profile project involved several key infrastructure companies, including  O’Hare Xpress LLC, a consortium comprised of participants from Antarctica Capital, Meridiam, First Transit, JLC Infrastructure, and UK-based Mott MacDonald, the design engineer for London’s Heathrow airport terminal. Despite the relative inexperience of the Boring Company compared to O’Hare Xpress LLC, the government of Chicago opted to award the project to the tunneling startup. 

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As the company prepares to break ground on its Chicago project, its tunnel in LA is set to offer free demo rides to the public soon, pending final regulatory approvals. If this recent video from the tunneling startup is any indication, these demo rides might end up a very colorful affair. 

Simon is an experienced automotive reporter with a passion for electric cars and clean energy. Fascinated by the world envisioned by Elon Musk, he hopes to make it to Mars (at least as a tourist) someday. For stories or tips--or even to just say a simple hello--send a message to his email, simon@teslarati.com or his handle on X, @ResidentSponge.

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These Tesla, X, and xAI engineers were just poached by OpenAI

The news is the latest in an ongoing feud between Elon Musk and the Sam Altman-run firm OpenAI.

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Credit: OpenAI | YouTube

OpenAI, the xAI competitor for which Elon Musk previously served as a boardmember and helped to co-found, has reportedly poached high-level engineers from Tesla, along with others from xAI, X, and still others.

On Tuesday, Wired reported that OpenAI hired four high-level engineers from Tesla, xAI, and X, as seen in an internal Slack message sent by co-founder Greg Brockman. The engineers include Tesla Vice President of Software Engineering David Lau, X and xAI’s head of infrastructure engineering Uday Ruddarraju, and fellow xAI infrastructure engineer Mike Dalton. The hiring spree also included Angela Fan, an AI researcher from Meta.

“We’re excited to welcome these new members to our scaling team,” said Hannah Wong, an OpenAI spokesperson. “Our approach is to continue building and bringing together world-class infrastructure, research, and product teams to accelerate our mission and deliver the benefits of AI to hundreds of millions of people.”

Lau has been in his position as Tesla’s VP of Software Engineering since 2017, after previously working for the company’s firmware, platforms, and system integration divisions.

“It has become incredibly clear to me that accelerating progress towards safe, well-aligned artificial general intelligence is the most rewarding mission I could imagine for the next chapter of my career,” Lau said in a statement to Wired.

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At xAI, Ruddarraju and Dalton both played a large role in developing the Colossus supercomputer, which is comprised of over 200,000 GPUs. One of the major ongoing projects at OpenAI is the company’s Stargate program,

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“Infrastructure is where research meets reality, and OpenAI has already demonstrated this successfully,” Ruddarraju told Wired in another statement. “Stargate, in particular, is an infrastructure moonshot that perfectly matches the ambitious, systems-level challenges I love taking on.”

Elon Musk is currently in the process of suing OpenAI for shifting toward a for-profit model, as well as for accepting an investment of billions of dollars from Microsoft. OpenAI retaliated with a counterlawsuit, in which it alleges that Musk is interfering with the company’s business and engaging in unfair competition practices.

Elon Musk confirms Grok 4 launch on July 9 with livestream event

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SpaceX share sale expected to back $400 billion valuation

The new SpaceX valuation would represent yet another record-high as far as privately-held companies in the U.S. go.

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A new report this week suggests that Elon Musk-led rocket company SpaceX is considering an insider share sale that would value the company at $400 billion.

SpaceX is set to launch a primary fundraising round and sell a small number of new shares to investors, according to the report from Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the matter who asked to remain anonymous due to the information not yet being public. Additionally, the company would sell shares from employees and early investors in a follow-up round, while the primary round would determine the price for the secondary round.

The valuation would represent the largest in history from a privately-owned company in the U.S., surpassing SpaceX’s previous record of $350 billion after a share buyback in December. Rivaling company valuations include ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok, as well as OpenAI.

Bloomberg went on to say that a SpaceX representative didn’t respond to a request for comment at the time of publishing. The publication also notes that the details of such a deal could still change, especially depending on interest from the insider sellers and share buyers.

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SpaceX’s valuation comes from a few different key factors, especially including the continued expansion of the company’s Starlink satellite internet company. According to the report, Starlink accounts for over half of the company’s yearly revenue. Meanwhile, the company produced its 10 millionth Starlink kit last month.

The company also continues to develop its Starship reusable rocket program, despite the company experiencing an explosion of the rocket on the test stand in Texas last month.

The company has also launched payloads for a number of companies and government contracts. In recent weeks, SpaceX launched Axiom’s Ax-4 mission, sending four astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) for a 14-day stay to work on around 60 scientific experiments. The mission was launched using the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and a new Crew Dragon capsule, while the research is expected to span a range of fields including biology, material and physical sciences, and demonstrations of specialized technology.

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Tesla Giga Texas continues to pile up with Cybercab castings

Tesla sure is gathering a lot of Cybercab components around the Giga Texas complex.

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Credit: @JoeTegtmeyer/X

Tesla may be extremely tight-lipped about the new affordable models that it was expected to start producing in the first half of the year, but the company sure is gathering a lot of Cybercab castings around the Giga Texas complex. This is, at least, as per recent images taken of the facility. 

Cybercab castings galore

As per longtime drone operator Joe Tegtmeyer, who has been chronicling the developments around the Giga Texas complex for several years now, the electric vehicle maker seems to be gathering hundreds of Cybercab castings around the factory. 

Based on observations from industry watchers, the drone operator appears to have captured images of about 180 front and 180 rear Cybercab castings in his recent photos.

Considering the number of castings that were spotted around Giga Texas, it would appear that Tesla may indeed be preparing for the vehicle’s start of trial production sometime later this year. Interestingly enough, large numbers of Cybercab castings have been spotted around the Giga Texas complex in the past few months.

Cybercab production

The Cybercab is expected to be Tesla’s first vehicle that will adopt the company’s “unboxed” process. As per Tesla’s previous update letters, volume production of the Cybercab should start in 2026. So far, prototypes of the Cybercab have been spotted testing around Giga Texas, and expectations are high that the vehicle’s initial trial production should start this year. 

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With the start of Tesla’s dedicated Robotaxi service around Austin, it might only be a matter of time before the Cybercab starts being tested on public roads as well. When this happens, it would be very difficult to deny the fact that Tesla really does have a safe, working autonomous driving system, and it has the perfect vehicle for it, too.

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