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Musk’s Boring Co reveals plan to support Hyperloop in published FAQ
Elon Musk’s plan to integrate Tesla electric sleds traveling through underground tunnels dug by The Boring Company will also include support for vacuum-sealed tunnels used by 600+ mph Hyperloop Pods.
The reveal comes from the company’s newly published Frequently Asked Questions page that does away with introductions and cuts straight to the chase.
“A large network of road tunnels many levels deep would fix congestion in any city, no matter how large it grew (just keep adding levels). The key to making this work is increasing tunneling speed and dropping costs by a factor of 10 or more – this is the goal of The Boring Company. Fast to dig, low cost tunnels would also make Hyperloop adoption viable and enable rapid transit across densely populated regions, enabling travel from New York to Washington DC in less than 30 minutes.” reads the FAQ.
The company isn’t even traveling at a snail’s pace, yet it has big plans to do just that – dig tunnels faster than a snail travels. In this case, resident snail Gary (who lives in a pineapple under the sea) can move at 14 times the speed of a Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) and represents the target speed for the company’s boring machines.
The Boring Company’s pet snail named Gary
The Framework for Hyperloop
The FAQ sheet broke news that Musk and the team at The Boring Company, in cooperation with Tesla, are planning to build tunnels that can support multi-payloads including that of a Hyperloop Pod. In addition to enabling travel and transport at much higher speeds, this addition is likely to set the Tesla electric sled platform as the standard track that will be used to support mobility of the Hyperloop Pod.
Certain segments of the underground tunnels will have a vacuum shell, if not the entire track, that will allow the tunnel to be held at vacuum. Long distance travel would likely be performed in tunnels held at vacuum, enabling for higher speeds of travel. This format of local versus long distance is the same used by train systems in Europe that have different trains and tracks depending on train speed and distance of travel.
Converts Internal Combustion Vehicles into EVs
Another upside of the system is that it enables the conversion of internal combustion vehicles into zero emission vehicles. When a traditional petroleum powered vehicle is moved onto an electric sled, it will be moved through a system that emits zero emissions. This eliminates the emissions these vehicles would have emitted if they would had ordinarily travelled by road to their destination.
Many people will take Hyperloop Pods to their destinations due to the lower cost of travel. Logistics companies will also shift payload transportation to the tunnel system due to the lower cost as a result of not having a driver, higher speed and automated control over the load. With all of this traffic moving to the conceptual tunnel-based transportation system, it has the potential to radically slash the amount of transportation related emissions and demand for fossil fuels.
If the petroleum industry wasn’t paying attention to Musk and the impact Tesla may have on automotive related fuel consumption, this announcement is surely the wake up call they needed.
Earthquake!
Hollywood thrillers over the years have cast subway systems as the perfect set for apocalyptic thrillers where only a muscular hero armed with backpack full of lithium ion batteries, a stick of bubblegum and the copper from the wiring for the lights can save the day.
The truth, it turns out, is much different. The FAQs relay the facts that structural engineers have know for ages – that properly designed tunnels are one of the safest places to be during an earthquake. The tunnels is not subject to surface forces and instead of resisting the movement of the earthquake, moves with the ground.
Dirty Business
When tunneling in the Minecraft video game, the tunnel materializes and the blocks smashed with a pickaxe or sword simply disappear or move into inventory. The real world is unfortunately not so simple, but The Boring Company has plans to make it just a bit more like Minecraft.
Two major challenges with traditional tunneling are the massive amount of earth being displaced by the tunnel and the equally as challenging amount of concrete that is required to seal the circumference of the tunnel. To solve these challenges together, The Boring Company hopes to develop a process for using the resulting soil to produce earthen bricks. These bricks could even be used as a component of the tunnel lining itself or simply sold as a product.
This is yet another piece of evidence that Tesla truly is attempting to create Minecraft in the real world, reviving the ancient practice of crafting bricks from dirt.
In addition to turning a liability into an asset, this has the potential to drastically cut the amount of concrete used in the production of the tunnels it is constructing. Because of the sheer mass of concrete and the effort required to extract its components, and ship them to the destination, concrete production accounts for a staggering 4.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The Boring Company hopes to take a chunk out of those emissions by using bricks where possible in the construction of its tunnels.
Where The Boring Company will go from here is anyone’s guess but this latest update makes it clear that Musk is never willing to settle for the status quo, and always begins working from the ground up – or in this case, from the ground down – when moving into a new business.
Elon Musk
ARK’s SpaceX IPO Guide makes a compelling case on why $1.75T may not be the ceiling
ARK Invest breaks down six reasons SpaceX’s $1.75 trillion IPO valuation may be justified.
ARK Invest, which holds SpaceX as its largest Venture Fund position at 17% of net assets, has published a detailed investor guide to why a SpaceX IPO may be grounded in a $1.75 trillion target valuation.
The financial case starts with Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite internet constellation, which has surpassed 10 million active subscribers globally as of early 2026, with 2026 revenue projected to exceed $20 billion. ARK’s research puts the total satellite connectivity market opportunity at roughly $160 billion annually at scale, and Starlink is adding customers faster than any telecom network in history. That growth alone would justify a substantial valuation.
Additionally, ARK notes that SpaceX has reduced the cost per kilogram to orbit from roughly $15,600 in 2008 to under $1,000 today through reusable Falcon 9 hardware. A fully operational Starship targeting sub-$100 per kilogram would represent a significant cost decline and open markets that do not currently exist. SpaceX executed a staggering 165 missions in 2025 and now accounts for approximately 85% of all global orbital launches. That infrastructure position took decades to build and would be nearly impossible to replicate at comparable cost.
SpaceX officially acquires xAI, merging rockets with AI expertise
The February 2026 merger with xAI added a layer to the valuation that straightforward financial models struggle to capture. ARK argues that at sub-$100 launch costs, orbital data centers could deliver compute roughly 25% cheaper than ground-based alternatives, without power grid delays, permitting friction, or land constraints. Musk has stated a goal of deploying 100 gigawatts of AI computing capacity per year from orbit.
The $1.75 trillion figure itself is not a conventional earnings multiple. At roughly 95x trailing revenue, it prices in Starlink’s adoption curve, Starship’s cost trajectory, and the orbital compute thesis together. The public S-1 prospectus, due at least 15 days before the June roadshow, will give investors their first complete look at the financials to test those assumptions. ARK’s position is that the track record earns the benefit of the doubt. Fully reusable rockets were considered unrealistic for years. Starlink was considered financially unviable. Both happened on timelines that surprised skeptics.
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.
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.”
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.”
This is before supervised FSD is approved in China. Limiting factor is production output in Shanghai.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2026
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
ARK’s SpaceX IPO Guide makes a compelling case on why $1.75T may not be the ceiling
Ford CEO Farley says Tesla is not who to look at for EV expertise
