Elon Musk: billionaire, entrepreneur, and man with a Twitter account. It’s a lethal combination that means when Musk tweets, we must ask questions. Namely: is he serious? 
 
 Last month, the SpaceX CEO sent out a string of tweets complaining about traffic. He suggested that a possible solution might be to start a tunnel-digging firm called — wait for it — The Boring Company, following it up by saying “I am actually going to do this,” and updating his bio to read: “Tesla, SpaceX, Tunnels & OpenAI.” This morning, he repeated the claim, and even assured a questioner that he was, in fact, serious. 
 
 Exciting progress on the tunnel front. Plan to start digging in a month or so. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2017 
 
 But is he? 
 
 The thing is, the idea of building tunnels to “solve” traffic sounds, on the face of it, no wilder than Hyperloop or a mission to Mars. By which I mean: it might be technically possible, but the logistical headaches involved mean there has to be serious will (and money) behind any efforts. Do we think Musk is really going to build a tunnel from his desk at SpaceX, as one tweet suggested? No. 
 
 @_wsimson Starting across from my desk at SpaceX. Crenshaw and the 105 Freeway, which is 5 mins from LAX — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2017 
 
 More plausible explanations for Musk’s interest in tunnels include the fact that, with President Trump’s pledge to fund infrastructure, starting a boring company now might be a lucrative idea. Or it’s just a joke — related, perhaps, to Trump’s plans to build a border wall with Mexico. After all, in the same Twitter sesh Musk also said his “neural lace” required for our conversion to cyborgs would be announced next month. It’s clear the man has a sense of humor. 
 
 We’ve messaged Musk to ask what’s going. Fingers crossed he’ll be a little more serious in his DMs than his tweets. ||||| Vacant lot at 53 New York Avenue NE in Washington, where a government permit has been granted for work connected with Elon Musk’s Hyperloop project. (Michael Laris/TWP) 
 
 It’s not much now, just a parking lot with a discarded gin bottle and an old exterminator receipt. 
 
 But the slice of pavement near the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in the District could be the gritty precursor to a tunnel network that could propel pods filled with people and speeding platforms topped with Teslas and Toyotas between the nation’s capital and New York in 29 minutes. 
 
 Or it could be just be a parking lot littered with dashed transportation dreams. 
 
 Electric-car pioneer and space entrepreneur Elon Musk has been touting his vision for a high-speed transportation system since his tweeted announcement last summer that he had received “verbal govt approval” for his tunnel-digging firm, the Boring Company, to build a “NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop.” 
 
 The Boring Company team has received an early, and vague, building permit from the D.C. government that will allow some preparatory and excavation work at the fenced-off parking lot at 53 New York Avenue NE beside a McDonald’s and amid the construction cranes of Washington’s booming NoMa neighborhood. 
 
 Asked about the permit, issued Nov. 29, a Boring Company spokesman said Friday that “a New York Avenue location, if constructed, could become a station” in a broad network of such stops across the new system. 
 
 D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) visited the Boring Company in California this month, walking in a tunnel to learn more about the technology the company says will make tunneling faster and cheaper. 
 
 The District’s Department of Transportation is figuring out what other permits the Boring Company would need to cut under city roads and other public spaces, according to Bowser’s chief of staff, John Falcicchio. 
 
 “We’re just beginning, in the mayor’s office, our conversation to get an understanding of what the general vision is for Hyperloop,” Falcicchio said. Asked whether the Bowser administration supports the project, he was somewhat upbeat but noncommittal, adding: “We’re open to the concept of moving people around the region more efficiently.” 
 
 Musk has received backing from the White House Office of American Innovation, led by President Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, as well as Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), whose administration rolled out a welcome mat and provided a utility permit, though more permits are needed and no tunneling has begun. Maryland officials say the tunnel would run under Maryland Route 295. The Baltimore-Washington leg would be the initial stretch in the East Coast system. 
 
 The overall concept is that pods with perhaps 16 people in each could speed around on electric sleds. Those sleds could also carry individual cars to and from numerous stations. There would be a main artery, with spurs connecting to various stations. 
 
 Elevators would take people up and down to the tunnels. And those tunnels would be built relatively close to the surface without disturbing buildings and other structures. 
 
 The stations would be somewhat modest affairs, numerous but not grand in scale like Union Station. 
 
 “Stations in a Loop or Hyperloop system are small in size and widely distributed in a network — very different from large-station termini considered for train systems,” the company spokesman said. 
 
 “Hyperloop” refers to a vacuum-based, people- and car-moving system, which would get rid of wind resistance. Shorter hops within or between cities might have a non-vacuum system, hence the reference to a “Loop” system. 
 
 Tunnel experts say the digging part is technically feasible, if potentially slow and expensive. As for how to safely orchestrate the underground system of multiple superfast pods, transportation experts say the challenges are legion. 
 
 And the naysayers are numerous, though their views are varied. Some point to Musk’s history of overpromising, as with the slow production of his more-affordable Tesla Model 3. But others, even skeptics, say he has a vision and hard-to-beat record of breakthroughs on the road and in his rocket ventures. 
 
 Some transportation advocates worry that moving people and cars — rather than just people — in the high-speed system would undercut the benefits of more-traditional mass transit. 
 
 “We need to fix the Metro. Traffic is just bad,” said Mohamed Hussein, an Uber driver from Virginia who stopped for lunch beside the New York Avenue parking lot. Hussein was not enamored with the idea of being swept along at harrowing speeds. “It’s like a bullet. Woooom!” he said. “Too much.” 
 
 And he was, he said, realistic about time. “How long will it take them to build the tunnel?” he asked. “It will take a long time.” 
 
 But Mohamed Musa, director of housekeeping at the Hyatt Place hotel a couple doors down, can’t wait. 
 
 “Just the idea of going to New York to have lunch and come back, it’ll be awesome,” Musa said.
– Say what you will about Elon Musk, he's not boring. But apparently that could change next month. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX tweeted last month about traffic in Los Angeles "driving me nuts" and said he was going to make a tunnel boring machine and "just start digging." He insisted at the time that he was serious. Musk was back to talking tunnels Wednesday, when he tweeted that he's planning "to start digging in a month or so." CNBC reports the plan is apparently to start drilling at SpaceX in order to tunnel under Los Angeles and get around its notoriously awful traffic. While it appears possible—probable?—that Musk is joking (he's dubbed his tunneling business The Boring Company), USA Today points out the man did send rockets to space and popularize electric cars. If anyone is going to successfully tunnel under Los Angeles, Musk would be the one to do it. But he would have to get around laws, permitting, and what CNBC calls "simple scientific realities." The Verge reports it's more likely that—if not joking—Musk is simply trying to set himself up to take advantage of President Trump's promise to throw money at infrastructure projects. In fact, Musk met with Trump this week.