Culture
Fort Lauderdale is buying into Elon Musk's Boring Company tunnel grift
Did they not see what he ended up delivering to Las Vegas?
One of Elon Musk’s lesser-covered scams has always been the Boring Company, a line of projects sold in vague terms as underground, automated hyperloop transit systems meant to ease metropolitan traffic congestion and promote greener infrastructure across the country. Originally, Tesla’s Technoking promised everyone 600+ mph self-piloting electric trains complete with magnetic levitation. But after years of hyperloop hype, everyone was finally treated to the first semi-completed public Boring Tunnel last month in Las Vegas, and... well, it’s apparently less a revolutionary, new form of transportation, and more a claustrophobic Tesla conveyor belt that barely tops out at 35 mph. Color us surprised.
Despite this obvious horseshittery, city developers apparently still can’t get enough of Elon’s pie-in-the-ground promises. The latest town to court disappointment? Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Providing a possible new route from downtown to the beach — Last night, Fort Lauderdale’s mayor, Dean J. Trantalis, announced via Twitter that the city accepted a proposal from Musk, and is now open for 45 days to competing companies’ bids.
“This could be a truly innovative way to reduce traffic congestion,” he wrote... which, sure, why not? It certainly could be innovative. It won’t be. But it could be. If completed (it won’t be), the Boring Company’s tunnel will apparently provide a route between somewhere in Fort Lauderdale’s downtown to the nearby beach. By our rough Google Maps estimates, that means it will probably be somewhere between 3 and 5 miles long, if it is ever finished... which, of course, it won’t be.
Musk and his mediocrity aren’t going anywhere — Fort Lauderdale isn’t the only Florida city considering embracing Musk's endeavors, either. As local Florida news outlet reports, Miami is apparently also weighing an offer from the Technoking for a similar tunnel system “with the overall goal being to reduce traffic on some of the busiest roadways in South Florida.”
Some might argue that however millions of dollars a new Boring Tunnel would cost could more suitably be spent on public transportation systems and local infrastructure considering everything going on in Florida these days. But hey, that would never deliver that 1950’s-themed Tesla Diner to the people.
Despite blatant market manipulations, years of overpromises, and awful Dogecoin memes, some of the nation’s most powerful government officials are still totally falling for Elon Musk’s various grifts.
