Elon Musk Announces Government Approval for East Coast Hyperloop Including Philly

It sounds like a dream come true: being able to travel between New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington DC in a matter of minutes thanks to a high-speed underground train. According to inventor Elon Musk, it could soon become an antibiotic. Musk announced on Twitter, his platform of choice for announcements and discussion, that he received “verbal government approval” for The Boring Company, his new tunnel boring startup, to dig out an underground Hyperloop connecting major east coast cities. According to Musk, the system would be fast enough to travel between New York and Washington DC in just 29 minutes.

Elon Musk’s The Boring Company recently completed the first segment of a tunnel in Los Angeles that would be similar to the Hyperloop he proposed between New York and Washington DC.

According to Electrek’s blog, Musk’s announcement may have been premature. As per their site: “The CEO keeps sending mixed messages about the startup. One day, he says it’s just “a few engineers and interns”, but the next day, they already have a giant boring machine digging under Los Angeles and now they reportedly have government approval for a massive system on the east coast?” Electrek pointed out that Musk would need to obtain approval at multiple levels of multiple state governments since the Hyperloop as proposed would travel through several states.

The news about a potential east coast Hyperloop came about a month after Musk announced that the Boring Company had completed the first stage  of a tunnel under Los Angeles. At first, the tunnels were presented as a way to move cars on “high speed electric sleds” through underground passages to lighten traffic. Mayors of both Los Angeles and Chicago showed an interest in the project, but then Musk ultimately took it a step further and suggested that the tunnels could be used to facilitate fast long-distance transportation.

The Hyperloop is a high-speed transportation system that moves pods of passengers or cargo in low-pressure tubes. Musk was asked on Twitter whether he had  backing for such a project, and the inventor enthusiastically responded that support “would be great!”