Elon Musk has a few irons in the transportation fire — Tesla, SpaceX and now The Boring Company, which has raised $113 million in new funding, according to a new SEC filing.
Elon Musk is giving more than $100 million to fund his tunnel startup, The Boring Company
According to an SEC filing, the tunnel-boring company has raised about $113 million.
Asa Mathat
The company says Musk himself provided over 90 percent of those funds — more than $100 million — while the rest of the funding came from early employees. There were no outside investors.
The filing did not name Musk; instead, it just named Jared Birchall as a director and executive. Birchall has alternatingly been listed as CFO, president and CEO of Neuralink, a startup Musk co-founded.
The Boring Company represents Musk’s ambition to build a network of underground tunnels that would help alleviate traffic, starting with Los Angeles.
Musk first revealed the concept for the tunnel system in 2017, with the intention of transporting passenger vehicles. At the time, Musk, who splits his time leading SpaceX and Tesla, said he only spends about 2 percent to 3 percent of his time on The Boring Company.
“This is basically interns and people doing it part-time,” he said. “We bought some second-hand machinery. It’s kind of puttering along but making good progress.”
He revisited that plan earlier this year, saying that The Boring Company’s tunnels would initially focus on public transit.
That first tunnel — Musk says the first segment has already been completed — would go from Los Angeles International Airport to Culver City, Santa Monica, Westwood and Sherman Oaks.
In its short existence, The Boring Company has managed to out-Musk even the most Musk-y endeavors. The company recently sold 20,000 flamethrowers — yes, flamethrowers. The company website reads: “Guaranteed to liven up any party! World’s safest flamethrower!”
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
