Connect with us

News

The Boring Company to sell LEGO-like bricks made from tunneling rock

[Grahic: PXSphere via CC0 and The Boring Company]

Published

on

Elon Musk recently announced the next merchandise offered by the Boring Company — life-sized interlocking bricks that could be used to construct “sculptures and buildings.”

According to Musk, the blocks, which would be coming from its tunneling projects, would be rated for California seismic loads, making them strong and durable. The bricks will also be lightweight and feature a precise surface finish, making them easy to assemble.

“New Boring Company merch coming soon. Lifesize LEGO-like interlocking bricks made from tunneling rock that you can use to create sculptures & buildings. Rated for California seismic loads, so super strong, but bored in the middle, like an aircraft wing spar, so not heavy.”

Musk added several new details about the Boring Company’s interlocking bricks in succeeding tweets, stating that the first “kit” that the company would release would be the Ancient Egypt series, comprised of the pyramids, the Sphinx, the Temple of Horus, and other notable landmarks in the country. Exhibiting his humor, Musk noted that the Boring Company bricks are guaranteed to be flamethrower-proof.

While The Boring Co.’s interlocking bricks seem like a fun, weekend project for those who love working with their hands, Musk also confirmed that the blocks could easily be used for more humanitarian purposes such as the construction of low-cost houses. This was addressed by one of his followers, @LeonsArcade, who asked Musk if the bricks could be used for this purpose.  

Advertisement

“Yeah, the boring bricks are interlocking with a precise surface finish, so two people could build the outer walls of a small house in a day or so,” Musk responded.

While the Boring Company’s bricks might seem like a novel item like the startup’s previous offerings — the flamethrower and the hat — the product has actually been teased by the tunneling startup for a long time, as could be seen in the company’s FAQ on its official website.

According to The Boring Co., the recycling of dirt excavated from its tunnels would be one of its key projects, seeing as the bricks could be used for both the tunnel linings themselves, or in structures such as houses. As noted by the tunneling startup, earth bricks from its tunneling projects would help the company reduce its environmental impact and tunneling costs, since concrete production accounts for 4.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“The Boring Company is investigating technologies that will recycle the earth into useful bricks to be used to build structures.  This is not a new concept, as buildings have been constructed from Earth for thousands of years including, according to recent evidence, the Pyramids.  These bricks can potentially be used as a portion of the tunnel lining itself, which is typically built from concrete.”

Advertisement

As we noted in a previous report, The Boring Company has raised $10 million from the sale of its flamethrowers (later named to Not A Flamethrower). The fiery product, which was offered for $500, was manufactured for a limited 20,000-unit run. The (Not A) Flamethrower sold very well, with 4,000 units being sold within 24 hours of its release. The tunneling startup has also made progress in its bid for the Chicago-O’Hare new transportation system, with the Boring Company being one of two finalists for the project. 

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.

Advertisement
Comments

Elon Musk

Ford CEO Farley says Tesla is not who to look at for EV expertise

Interestingly, Farley has been one of the most hellbent CEOs in terms of a legacy automaker standpoint to push the EV effort. It did not go according to plan, as Ford took a $19.5 billion charge and retreated from its EV push in late 2025.

Published

on

elon-musk-jim-farley-tesla-ford

Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a recent podcast interview that Tesla is not who Americans should look at to beat Chinese carmakers.

The comments have sparked quite a bit of outrage from Tesla fans on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk.

Farley said that Chinese automakers are better examples of how to beat competitors. He said (via the Rapid Response Podcast):

“If you’re an American and you want us to beat the Chinese in the car business, you’re all going to want to pay attention, not necessarily to Tesla. Nothing against Tesla—they’ve been doing great—but they really don’t have an updated vehicle. The best in the business for us, cost-wise and competition-wise, supply chain, manufacturing expertise, and the I.P. in the vehicle, was really BYD. In this next cycle of EV customers in the U.S., they want pickups and utilities and all these different body styles. But they want them at $30,000, not $50,000. Like the first inning, they want them affordably.”

Advertisement

Despite Farley’s synopsis, it is worth mentioning that Tesla had the best-selling passenger vehicle in the world last year, and in China in March, as the Model Y continued its global dominance over other vehicles.

Musk responded to Farley’s comments by stating:

“This is before Supervised FSD is approved in China. Limiting factor is production output in Shanghai.”

Interestingly, Farley has been one of the most hellbent CEOs in terms of a legacy automaker standpoint to push the EV effort. It did not go according to plan, as Ford took a $19.5 billion charge and retreated from its EV push in late 2025.

Ford cancels all-electric F-150 Lightning, announces $19.5 billion in charges

Instead, Ford is “doubling down on its affordable” EVs and said it would pivot from its previous plans.

Advertisement

Reaction from Tesla fans was pretty much how you would expect. Many said they have lost a lot of respect for Farley after his comments; others believe he is the last CEO anyone should be taking advice on EVs from.

Nevertheless, Farley’s plans are bold and brash; many consider Tesla the most ideal company to replicate EV efforts from. It will be interesting to see if Ford can rebound from this big adjustment, and hopefully, Farley’s plans to replicate efforts from BYD work out the way he hopes.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

SpaceX wins its first MARS contract but it comes with a catch

NASA awarded SpaceX a $175 million Mars rover contract while the White House proposes cutting the mission.

Published

on

By

NASA just signed a $175.7 million contract with SpaceX to launch a Mars rover that the White House is simultaneously trying to defund. The contract, awarded on April 16, 2026, tasks SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy with launching the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosalind Franklin rover from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, no earlier than late 2028. It would mark the first time SpaceX has ever sent a payload to Mars.

Under NASA’s Rosalind Franklin Support and Augmentation project, known as ROSA, the agency is providing braking engines for the rover’s descent stage, radioisotope heater units that use decaying plutonium to keep the rover warm on the Martian surface, additional electronics, and a mass spectrometer instrument, as noted by SpaceNews.

Those nuclear heating units are the reason an American rocket was required at all. U.S. export controls on radioisotope technology mean any payload carrying them must launch on a domestic vehicle, which narrowed the field to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. Falcon Heavy’s pricing made it the practical choice.

SpaceX is quietly becoming the U.S. Military’s only reliable rocket

Advertisement

Falcon Heavy debuted in February 2018 and has 11 launches to its record. The rocket has not flown since October 2024, when it sent NASA’s Europa Clipper toward Jupiter. The three-core design, built from modified Falcon 9 first stages, gives it the lift capacity needed for deep space planetary missions that a single Falcon 9 cannot reach.

The Rosalind Franklin rover has been sitting in storage in Europe for years. It was originally due to launch in 2022 as a joint mission with Russia, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine ended that partnership, leaving the rover built but stranded without a launch vehicle or landing hardware. NASA stepped back in through a 2024 agreement with ESA to rescue the mission. The rover is designed to drill up to two meters below the Martian surface in search of evidence of past life, a science objective no previous mission has attempted at that depth.

The contradiction at the center of this story is hard to ignore. The White House’s fiscal year 2027 budget proposal included no funding for ROSA and did not mention the mission at all in the detailed congressional justification document released April 3.

Musk has long argued that reaching Mars is not optional. “We don’t want to be one of those single planet species, we want to be a multi-planet species.” Whether this particular mission survives Washington’s budget fight, the Falcon Heavy contract means SpaceX is now formally on record as the rocket that could get humanity’s next Mars science mission off the ground.

Advertisement

The timing of this contract carries extra weight given that SpaceX filed confidentially with the SEC in early April and is targeting an IPO roadshow in the week of June 8. It would be the largest public offering in history.

Continue Reading

Elon Musk

Tesla Q1 Earnings: What Elon Musk and Co. will answer during the call

Published

on

Credit: Tesla

Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is set to hold its Earnings Call for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday, and there are a lot of interesting things that are swirling around in terms of speculation from investors.

With the company’s executives, including CEO Elon Musk, answering a handful of questions that investors submit through the Say platform, fans want to know a lot of things about a lot of things.

These five questions come from Retail Investors, who are normal, everyday shareholders:

  1. When will we have the Optimus v3 reveal? When will Optimus production start, since we ended the Model S and Model X production earlier than mid-year? What’s the expected Optimus production rate exiting this year? What are the initial targeted skills?
  2. What milestones are you targeting for unsupervised FSD and Robotaxi expansion beyond Austin this year, and how will that drive recurring revenue?
  3. How will Hardware 3 cars reach Unsupervised Full Self-Driving?
  4. When do you expect Unsupervised Full Self-Driving to reach customer cars?
  5. When will Robotaxi expand past its current limited rollout?

Additionally, these are currently the three questions that are slated to be answered by Institutional Firms, which also answer a handful of questions during the call:

  1. Now that FSD has been approved in the Netherlands and is expected to launch across Europe this summer, can you discuss your Robotaxi strategy for the region?
  2. What enabled you to finish the AI5 tapeout early and were there any changes to the original vision? Last week, Elon said AI5 will go into Optimus and the Supercomputer, but one month ago said it would go into the Robotaxi. Has AI5 been dropped from the vehicle roadmap?
  3. Given the recent NHTSA incident filings, can you update us on the Robotaxi safety data? If safety validation remains the primary bottleneck, why not deploy thousands of vehicles to accelerate the removal of the safety driver?

The questions range through every current Tesla project, including FSD expansion and Optimus. However, many of the answers we will get will likely be repetitive answers we’ve heard in the past.

This is especially pertinent when the questions about when Unsupervised FSD will reach customer cars: we know Musk will say that it will happen this year. Is Tesla capable of that? Maybe. But a more transparent answer that is more revealing of a true timeline would be appreciated.

Advertisement

Hardware 3 owners are anxiously awaiting the arrival of FSD v14 Lite, which was promised to them last year for a release sometime this year.

The Earnings Call is set to take place on Wednesday at market close.

Continue Reading