Elon Musk News Thread

[LevelUP]

This thread is for anything Elon Musk news-related, particularly focusing on personal news and side project companies.

For discussions about his main companies like Twitter, Tesla, or SpaceX, please use a separate thread.

One company attempted to capitalize on crypto by creating an 'Elon Goat Token.' Hint: It didn't end well.

[LevelUP]

Elon Musk’s Boring Company raises $675 million to accelerate its tunnel-digging under cities
https://electrek.co/2022/04/21/elon-musk...er-cities/

Tunnel under las vegas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFWZWDqyV2I

Prefrock-2 which is the current interaction of the boring machine has been designed to mine up to 1 mile per week. That's enough to do the Las Vegas strip which is 4 miles in a month.

Prufrock-3, a next-gen machine that will supposedly be able to handle 7 miles per day.

As a point of reference, less than 20 miles of underground subway tunnel has been constructed in the United States in the last 20 years.

A while back they were talking about doing a hyperloop which seems like it would end up being too costly.

Though a simple system under the major cities would help the traffic problem. Then connecting major cities such as DC to Baltimore or San Francisco to L.A. is another possibility.

Could we soon be boring 100+ miles per year in tunnels? Would this be better than the idea of doing high-speed rail? Thoughts?

[ss20ts]

Nope. You won't see 100 miles a year in tunnels. Too costly. Environmental issues. Bedrock issues. High speed rail wouldn't survive in the US without major funding and annual subsidies from taxpayers. We love our cars in America.

[dfrecore]

Nope. You won't see 100 miles a year in tunnels. Too costly. Environmental issues. Bedrock issues. High speed rail wouldn't survive in the US without major funding and annual subsidies from taxpayers. We love our cars in America.

Other places in the world that have high speed rail have a density that most American cities can't match.  So the number of people using the train in Europe for instance, is far higher than we could hope to have here.  Of 20 countries that have high speed rail, 3 of them are less dense than the US (Norway, Finland, and the Netherlands).  The other 17 are denser, by a factor of 2x to 6x to 15x to as much as 200x denser than us.

There are plenty more reasons that we don't have it, it's not JUST because American's love our cars.  Our country was agricultural and then suburban because we are a much newer country than European ones; we were largely created when transportation was better.  We are spread out.  We have strong property rights.  We have an extremely efficient but slow rail system here to move non-perishable goods (Europe's is not efficient at all).

In the US, it's much easier to get through large tracts of land owned by people that we can't just take away, by flying.  It's much more efficient than trains for this country in particular.  How would you get from San Diego to Dallas TX on a bullet train?  It's just not practical.  The fact that we already have slow train infrastructure, airports, and an interstate highway system makes it much harder to even discuss adding another option that will be expensive, unwieldy, take property rights from people...it just doesn't make a lot of sense to do.

[freeloader]

Prufrock-3, a next-gen machine that will supposedly be able to handle 7 miles per day.

Not being critical of you LevelUP, you are just quoting the article, but there is just no way that is possible. 

7 miles a day works out to almost 26 feet per minute or just under 1/2 foot per second. No way that’s possible. That would be challenging in loosely packed soil, but cutting through rock?  Not possible. 

And even if you could bore that quickly, you have to reinforce the tunnel. Today, that means using things like giant pressure bands, concrete, and rebar. I’m sure that could be made more efficient, but not 26 feet per minute efficient. 

Sorry, I call BS on this, Elon.

[LevelUP]

[LevelUP]

So apparently, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have said something about fighting each other?

Normally, I have some sort of theory as to what is happening, but this time I don't know.

Anyway, this thread helps me meet my quota of at least one Elon Musk thread per month.

So if anyone thinks they know what is going on, let me know.

[bjcheung77]

Did a quick search, first link that came up: https://www.ladbible.com/news/us-news/ma...4-20230713

[LevelUP]

Musk-Zuckerberg ‘cage match’ PPV would bring in a record over $1 billion

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/23/musk-zuc...llars.html

[LevelUP]

Elon Musk’s $55 billion Tesla CEO compensation gets voided by judge

https://electrek.co/2024/01/30/elon-musk...-by-judge/

Musk briefly commented on the judgment, which he is most likely going to appeal, on X:



I think Musk is saying Deleware is now a communist state.