Tech-entrepreneur Elon Musk thinks building a maze of tunnels across the country will ease traffic congestion.
“Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging …” the Tesla Motors founder wrote in a series of tweets Sunday. He even gave the program a name: “The Boring Company.”
It’s possible Musk, who has floated the tunnel-boring idea once before, was simply venting, irked at having to navigate California’s snarling traffic. But Musk told his Twitter followers that he was “actually going to do this.”
Musk told reporters earlier this year that the ideal way to ease the country’s crowded infrastructure was to build miles and miles of tunnels.
“It’s a really simple and obvious idea and I wish more people would do it: build more tunnels,” the billionaire tinkerer said during a question-and-answer session at an event in January.
“Tunnels are great,” he added. “It’s just a hole in the ground, it’s not that hard. But if you have tunnels in cities you would massively alleviate congestion and you could have tunnels at all different levels.”
The SpaceX founder was added Dec. 14 to a group of business giants responsible for giving industry input on the private sector to President-elect Donald Trump, who made rebuilding the U.S.’s infrastructure a key plank in his presidential campaign.
Trump proposed an infrastructure program totaling more than half a trillion dollars in August. He told reporters at the time that the improvements would be paid for through contributions made by investors and private citizens. “I would say at least double her numbers, and you’re going to really need more than that. We have bridges that are falling down,” he said, referring to his Democratic opponent former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She proposed an infrastructure program estimated to cost $275 billion.
Trump’s victory might mean the end of some federal tax subsidies for solar power and electric cars, according to a Wall Street Journal report in November.
The former reality TV star could damage Musk’s business ventures if he eliminates or refuses to renew lucrative tax credits, which are set to phase out within the next five years.
Follow Chris on Facebook and Twitter
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
