Traffic is driving me nuts. Am going to build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging…
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2016
The Boring Company has a focus on tunnel construction as its business model. It was founded by Elon Musk in December of 2016. Its current proposed infrastructure projects are underground metropolitan loop transit systems. They hope to eventually support Hyperloop-based intracity transportation.
The Boring Company has already built multiple tunnels under Las Vegas intended for loop travel. It has built one tunnel that needs further testing for Hyperloop travel in L.A. County. Many other tunnels are in different phases of planning and negotiations.
Elon Musk has said that overwhelming Los Angeles automobile traffic and the limits of what he calls traditional “two-dimensional transportation” of above ground streets and highways inspired him to start the company.
The Boring Company was originally a holding of SpaceX. It became its own independent company in 2018. 90% of the equity in The Boring Company is owned by Musk and 6% is held on SpaceX’s balance sheet as of December 2018. The equity was given to SpaceX as payment for the use of its resources during the startup phase of the new company. Outside investors have changed the equity split as The Boring Company has continued to raise capital through selling new equity stakes. [1]
The Boring Company raised its first outside investment to fund the development of their tunnel systems. Bloomberg has been following their stages of funding so far:
The company authorized the sale of $120 million in stock, according to a securities filing that was obtained by the Prime Unicorn Index. The investment is in addition to the $113 million the company raised last year.
The Boring Company is not currently publicly traded. With an estimated $5 billion current valuation, and if Musk is the CEO with a similar capital structure to Tesla, the IPO stock price could be approximately $25 with an initial 200 million share float. [2]
