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Elon Musk doesn’t appear to have a large threshold for boredom, but he may have to start setting aside more time for Boring.
On Thursday, the Boring Co., a.k.a. Musk’s other other venture, centered on underground tunneling, scored a $3 billion funding round led by the United Arab Emirates at a $23 billion valuation. That’s a massive jump from the $5.7 billion valuation Boring held at its most recent funding round in 2022, even though the company has made scant progress on any project since. After raising $86 billion for the SpaceX IPO earlier this summer, Musk still has no trouble finding more capital.
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Tunnel Vision
To date, the tunnel-transit company, which spun off from SpaceX in 2018, has brought just one project to fruition: a Tesla taxi tunnel network known as the Vegas Loop, which runs fewer than 4 miles and services 14 stations. That’s technically just the start of a planned nearly 68-mile network. Otherwise, the company’s recent history is mostly defined by connecting Musk’s vast corporate campus in rural Bastrop, Texas, as well as projects that never came to be, including abandoned plans to tunnel in Chicago, Los Angeles and Ontario.
Still, the arrival of the new funding comes as at least two projects are showing forward motion:
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The first is the 10-mile Music City Loop in Nashville, Tennessee, that’s privately funded. The company broke ground on the project this year after receiving fast-track approval from local officials, and stretches of it are reported to be on track to become operational by the fourth quarter of this year.
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The second is a planned 14-mile network in Dubai, hence the UAE’s lead involvement in the funding round. The company said the latest cash infusion will support the development of the Dubai project, which it says will cost $545 million and take about three years to complete.
Dig Deep: The latest funding round brings cash, with strings attached. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal last week, Boring told some of the funding round participants that they must take an active role in supporting the company, such as by helping it recruit employees or connect with local officials in cities it may have projects in. Boring retains the right to buy back some of the investors’ shares if they fail to live up to such obligations. In an X post, Musk himself confirmed the WSJ report as “True.”
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