In 2013, Elon Musk published in a white paper the idea of traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco in just 35 minutes through a vacuum-sealed tube, a system he called Hyperloop. The idea "came from his hatred of California's proposed high-speed rail system" according to to his biographer Ashlee Vance.
Ten years later, the most prominent startup that tried to follow in Musk's footsteps, Hyperloop One, is closing its doors. And news of his disappearance broke less than two weeks after the Biden administration will announce $6 billion in funding for high-speed rail projects throughout California.
It's a big victory for public transportation advocates, many of whom have spent decades fighting not only for high-speed rail, but also for better rail service in general. Biden's announcement also included funding for a many other railway projects around the country. But it is by no means a clean victory.
On the one hand, many cities and states were lulled by the siren call of the Hyperloop and subsequently left adrift. I still vividly remember telling a story in 2018 about the collapse of Arrivo (another Hyperloop startup created by one of the co-founders of Hyperloop One) and calling the Colorado Department of Transportation to ask about the company's bankruptcy, only to realize in the call that They had no idea what had happened..
Colorado was not alone. Hyperloop One once promised West Virginia it would build a $500 million testing and certification facility in the state. He also built a test track near Las Vegas where, briefly, he moved some people through a tube, enough of an accomplishment, apparently, for then-CEO Jay Walder. would affirm which was the “first new form of mass transportation in over 100 years.”
Other Hyperloop projects and companies remain, although largely outside the United States. Fortunately, this country was already regaining momentum to invest in its rail system, focusing on faster trains.
The most notable effort is Brightline, a company that recently extended its existing service from Florida to Orlando allowing passengers to travel there from as far away as Miami.
Brightline is also building what it calls “the country's first true high-speed rail network” between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. That project received $3 billion in funding recently announced by the Biden administration and is expected to begin construction in early 2024.
Building high-speed trains will require more than just money. There is deep rooted problems obstacles derived from years of deregulation. Projects of this size also have difficulty staying on schedule and on budget. He other The big recipient of the newly announced federal funding — another $3.000 billion — is a high-speed rail project planned to run along the spine of California that was the original source of Musk's ire.
Could the revival of high-speed rail risk a rematch with the world's richest man? Perhaps, although train fans can take solace in how distracted Musk has become since that 2013 post.
Furthermore, aside from a handful of engineering competitions hosted by SpaceX, Musk only had his own Hyperloop projects on a superficial level.
Musk once tweeted that he had “verbal government approval” to build “a NY-Phil-Balt-DC Underground Hyperloop.” It was never built. In April 2022 he expressed his commitment to tunnel construction with his initiative, The Boring Company, which would "try to build a working Hyperloop." The next day the company tweeted “Large-scale Hyperloop testing will begin later this year.” That never happened either.
Musk spent the last decade barely interacting with the Hyperloop, essentially stating his intent to kill high-speed rail. With the death of Hyperloop One casting a shadow over that premise, it increasingly looks like the billionaire has a decision to make: Does he care enough to find time to finish the job himself?
