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| The Boring Company | |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Industry | Construction |
| Founded | January 11, 2017 |
| Founder | Elon Musk |
| Headquarters | Bastrop, Texas, United States |
| Key people |
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| Owner | |
Number of employees | ~700 (2026) |
| Website | boringcompany |
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|---|---|---|
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Personal Companies Politics In the arts and media |
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The Boring Company (TBC) is an American infrastructure, tunnel construction service, and equipment company founded by Elon Musk. TBC was founded as a subsidiary of SpaceX in 2017, and was spun off as a separate corporation in 2018. The original Las Vegas Convention Center Loop (1.7 miles, three stations) opened in 2021. By late 2026 the Vegas Loop had expanded to roughly 14 operational stations (including Resorts World, Encore, Westgate, Fontainebleau, and Sahara) and had carried more than 4 million passengers. Clark County has approved up to 68 miles and more than 100 stations. A roughly two-mile Paradise Road twin-tunnel section was expected to open before the November 2026 Formula 1 race. The company has tested self-driving operation with a safety driver present. In September 2026 TBC raised a $3 billion Series D that valued the company at $23 billion.
Many other TBC projects in cities across the United States were announced, but subsequently became inactive or were canceled.

Musk first announced the idea of the Boring Company in December 2016. It was registered as "TBC – The Boring Company" on January 11, 2017. Musk cited Los Angeles traffic and the limits of a two-dimensional road network as his inspiration for the project. The Boring Company was originally formed as a SpaceX subsidiary, but it was spun out into a separate corporate entity the following year. According to Musk, the company's goal is to increase tunneling speed and reduce its cost to the point that building a tunnel network under Los Angeles becomes financially feasible.

After initial funding of US$113 million, mostly from Musk and supplemented by 2018 merchandise sales, the Boring Company sold $120 million in stock to venture capital firms in July 2019.
In early 2018, the company completed several tests in Hawthorne, California and showcased a test tunnel on December 18, 2018. It had initially intended to also build a test tunnel in Los Angeles, but canceled it at the end of the year in favor of a commercial tunnel to Dodger Stadium. However, in June of that year it won its first construction bid, a tunnel to connect downtown Chicago with O'Hare International Airport, although the project quickly died when Chicago's then-mayor, Rahm Emanuel, who had strongly advocated for it, chose not to seek reelection.
In May 2019, it won its first construction contract, a $48.6 bid to build a tunnel and provide transportation under the Las Vegas Convention Center. Despite earlier claims of intending to develop hyperloops, the company announced the transportation network would be run with electric cars. Musk defended his scaled-back ambitions, saying the rudimentary approach was "simple and just works." The tunnel, 1.7 miles (2.7 km) long, was finished in 2021; the company began offering rides to customers in October of that year.
By November 2019, Steve Davis, one of Musk's early hires at SpaceX, had become company president. In November 2020, TBC announced hiring for positions in Austin, Texas, and by December 2020 had leased two buildings near Texas Gigafactory outside of Austin.
In 2021, TBC removed its planned Dodger Stadium tunnel from its website, as well as another planned tunnel between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Both projects had been caught up in environmental review for several years.
In April 2022, the company announced an additional $675 million Series C funding round, valuing the company at approximately $5.675 billion. In September 2026 it raised a $3 billion Series D led by the United Arab Emirates and affiliated entities, valuing the company at $23 billion. The earlier Series C round was led by Vy Capital and Sequoia Capital, with participation from Valor Equity Partners, Founders Fund, 8VC, Craft Ventures, and DFJ Growth. In 2022, the company was cited by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for five violations of Texas environmental regulations.
By April 2023, the company had moved its headquarters and engineering facilities to Bastrop, Texas, approximately 25 miles (40 km) east of Texas Gigafactory.
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell has said that TBC's tunneling technology could be used to build homes on Mars, and Musk has suggested it could be used to develop future Mars settlements.
In 2018, the company raised several tens of millions of dollars by selling merchandise, including 50,000 baseball caps, 20,000 blowtorches marketed as "flamethrowers," and fire extinguishers.
In 2021, TBC held a student tunnel-boring competition in Las Vegas. Officially named the Not-a-Boring Competition, the challenge was to "quickly and accurately drill a tunnel that was 30 m-long (98 ft) and 30 cm-wide (0.98 ft)". 12 finalist teams competed; the winner was TUM Boring from Technical University of Munich. A second competition was held in April 2023, this time in Texas with 5 finalists. TUM Boring again won, achieving a maximum velocity of 7 mm/s (0.28 in/s).

TBC's first boring machine was Godot, a conventional tunnel boring machine (TBM) made by Lovat.
Godot was followed by Prufrock. It introduced the principle of onsite upgrades.
Prufrock medium bore 1 (MB1) introduced porpoising, continuous mining, rapid iteration, and remote operation (termed "zero people in tunnel" (ZPIT)). It was the first TBC machine to tunnel through rock (limestone). Its cutter head featured 15.5-inch disc cutters.
MB2 is the second hard-rock Prufrock machine used on the Music City Loop. It has 15% higher power and 17-inch disc cutters compared with MB1’s 15.5-inch cutters. The company has claimed a target of roughly one mile per week. Compared to MB1, it offered 15% higher power and 1.5-inch larger disc cutters (which were 17-inch).
Prufrock-MB2 arrived in Nashville, Tennessee, in April 2026 and completed testing in June 2026.
The company said in 2022 that the goal of MB3 was to dig up to seven miles per day. As of June 2026, MB3 is being built and specifications are not available.
Liner Truck 3 was introduced in 2026 and transports liner segments from the surface to the TBM. It is remotely piloted and has a low profile to allow it to drive under the conveyor belt. It has a range of 28 miles and can carry 22 tons of concrete liner segments at once.
The goal is to replace tunnel entry and exit excavations by having the TBM "porpoise" in and out of the ground. The TBM is trucked in and placed at an angle to the ground. (Prufrock 2 and 3 required an earthen ramp to set it at the correct angle before beginning to tunnel). It then bores into the ground and changes angles as it continues boring, eventually returning to the surface and being loaded onto the truck.
In conventional systems, one large excavation is made at the tunnel entrance to allow the TBM to be lowered to the tunnel depth and assembled. A similar excavation is made at the tunnel exit to allow the TBM to be disassembled and lifted out.
TBC lines its tunnels with hexagonal concrete segments. It installs the segments via an electric, autonomous, process. Segments arrive in the tunnel via an electric wheeled liner truck powered by motors and batteries from Tesla.
TBC is working to install ring liners without stopping tunneling. Conventional systems stop every five feet or so to install another segment of the tunnel lining, and to extend the rail line. The goal is to increase tunneling time per day from 11 hours to 24 hours.
An electrically-powered conveyor belt (Vertical Cassette, or VC) is used to transport excavated material ("muck") out of the tunnel. The conveyor belt is positioned at the top of the tunnel and is attached to the concrete lining segments.
VC7 can extract 990 tons/hour at 50% capacity, supporting a 4 mile/week tunneling speed. The belt travels 660 ft/minute. VC7 can handle curves with radius as small as 500 ft. Individual units can be chained together every 1.5 miles to support long tunnels. VCs co-operate in a tunnel with the liner truck.

The Hawthorne test tunnel, or Boring test tunnel, is a 1.14 miles (1.83 km) tunnel in Hawthorne, California, intended for testing “tunneling and public transportation systems”, constructed between 2016 and 2018. It was accompanied by a mile-long aboveground tube on nearby Jack Northrop Ave designed for testing hyperloop and loop-based transportation, which was used for student competitions in 2018 and 2019 before being dismantled in 2022.
The Vegas Loop, originally known as the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop (LVCC Loop), is a car tunnel system that serves the Las Vegas Convention Center, area hotels and attractions, and Harry Reid International Airport. Operating since 2021, the system uses Tesla Model Y vehicles to shuttle passengers among nine stations. The Boring Company began construction in November 2019 and has continued intermittent tunnel drilling for planned stations. When completed, the company projects that the Loop will include 68 miles of tunnels and 123 stations.
In 2026 the company signed a construction contract with Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority for a pilot phase of 6.4 km of tunnel and four stations. Construction is planned to begin in late 2026. The September 2026 Series D is tied to a broader UAE partnership that includes plans for more than 150 km of tunnels.
The Music City Loop is an under construction underground transit tunnel system in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, that would connect downtown Nashville to the Nashville International Airport (airport code: BNA). The Boring Company initially planned to complete the project in 2026 at the earliest.
A privately funded system intended to connect downtown Nashville (including Music City Center and Lower Broadway) with West End Avenue and Nashville International Airport. Tunneling began in early 2026 after state permits. As of early October 2026, Prufrock-MB1 and MB2 were mining simultaneously; MB3 was preparing for a late-October launch and MB4 was under construction. More than 40 stations were in planning or design. Local officials and environmental groups have raised concerns about karst limestone risks and transparency.
In 2025, the Shingle Creek Transit and Utility Community Development District began exploring proposals for a transportation system linking the Epic Universe theme park with other Universal Orlando properties along International Drive and near Interstate 4. In February 2026, the district voted to begin contract negotiations with The Boring Company regarding a proposed underground transit system modeled after the Vegas Loop.
In 2017, Musk announced plans to build a Hyperloop connecting Washington, DC to Baltimore. This was supplanted in 2018 by a proposal to build a route following the Baltimore–Washington Parkway. The Maryland Transportation Authority officially approved the project. In 2019, a draft Environmental Assessment for the project was completed. As of 2021, the project was no longer listed on the company website, the federal government had received no indication the company wanted to move forward, TBC dropped a Maryland lobbyist it had hired for the project, and the company declined to comment on the project.
In 2018, the company won a bid to build a high-speed link from downtown Chicago to O'Hare Airport, to be known as the Chicago Express Loop. As of 2021, the plan had been dropped.
In 2018, TBC proposed to develop a 2.7-mile-long (4.3 km) test tunnel on a north–south alignment parallel to Interstate 405 and adjacent to Sepulveda Boulevard.: 25:50 Public opposition and lawsuits led the company to abandon the idea. Also in 2018, the company proposed to build a 3.6-mile (5.8 km) tunnel called the "Dugout Loop" from Vermont Avenue to Dodger Stadium. As of June 2021[update], the project had been removed from TBC's website.
In 2019, a link between San Jose International Airport and Diridon station, was discussed as an alternative to an $800 million traditional rail link. Plans were later dropped.
In February 2021, the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority (SBCTA) in California approved beginning contract negotiations with TBC to build a nearly 4-mile (6.4 km) tunnel connecting the Ontario airport with the Rancho Cucamonga Metrolink/Future Brightline West train station. However, TBC did not submit a proposal after a third party was involved to study the project impacts. As of 2022, the SBCTA has plans to build the tunnel system using "another company more familiar with the state's bureaucracy to do the Environmental Impact Report".
In July 2021, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, accepted a proposal from the Boring Company for a tunnel between downtown and the beach, to be dubbed the "Las Olas Loop". In August 2021, the city was beginning final negotiations with TBC, and Mayor Dean Trantalis estimated the total cost of the 5-mile (8.0 km) round-trip tunnel would be between $90 and $100 million, including stations. As of December 2022, the city suspended efforts to continue the project.
Bexar County selected The Boring Company to build a transit link between downtown San Antonio, Texas and San Antonio International Airport in March 2022, but was then "ghosted" by the company.
In February 2021, Miami mayor Francis Suarez revealed that Musk had proposed to dig a two-mile tunnel under the Miami River for $30 million, within a six-month timescale, compared with $1 billion over four years estimated by the local transit authority. Much of the savings would be achieved by simplifying ventilation systems and allowing only electric vehicles. As of November 2023, the city is waiting for the Miami Dade Transportation Planning Organization to complete an analysis of the project.
In August 2021, a preliminary concept discussion was held with officials of Cameron County on the potential construction of a tunnel from South Padre Island to Boca Chica Beach in South Texas. If built, the tunnel would be required to pass beneath the Brownsville Ship Channel. It would allow SpaceX's facilities at Starbase to remain accessible if Highway 4, its sole access road, was closed.
In January 2019, Musk responded to a tweet by an Australian member of parliament regarding a tunnel through the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney, suggesting costs of $750 million for a 31-mile (50 km) tunnel, plus $50 million per station. New South Wales' transportation department found that based on the cost of the Hawthorne tunnel, the estimated cost would be closer to $6 billion.
Civil engineering experts and tunneling industry veterans questioned whether TBC could render tunnels faster and cheaper than competitors. Tunnelling Journal dismissed the company as a "vanity project". The low capacity of TBC tunnels make them inefficient compared to existing public transit, with only a fraction of the capacity of a conventional rapid-transit subway.
Musk's planned tunnels were criticized for lacking such safety features as emergency exit corridors, ventilation systems, or fire suppression. In addition, the single lane tunnels left it impossible for vehicles to pass one another in the event of collision, mechanical failure, or other traffic obstruction, and instead would shut down the entire tunnel section.
James Moore, director of transportation engineering at the University of Southern California, said that "there are cheaper ways to provide better transportation for large numbers of people", such as managing traffic with tolls. Public transit consultant Jarrett Walker called TBC "wildly hyped", and criticized how the company "dazzled city governments and investors with visions of an efficient subway where you never have to get out of your car, [but turned] out to be a paved road tunnel".
When the Boring Co. was earlier this year spun into its own firm, more than 90% of the equity went to Mr. Musk and the rest to early employees, ... The Boring Co. has since given some equity to SpaceX as compensation for the help, ... about 6% of Boring stock, "based on the value of land, time and other resources contributed since creation of the company".
In late 2016 … bought a machine and started boring a tunnel
In 2016, a frustrated Musk said he planned to start digging tunnels … Now the joke has turned into something very real.
Many other TBC projects in cities across the United States were announced