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Elon Musk’s $1b plan to drill a 50km hole through New South Wales

Images: Getty, Jeremy Buckingham
Images: Getty, Jeremy Buckingham

Elon Musk has created a stir on Twitter after weighing in on the New South Wales transport debate by suggesting a 50 km tunnel to the Blue Mountains could be done for $1 billion.

The head of Tesla and Boring Company was responding to a tweet by independent MP Jeremy Buckingham asking him how much such a tunnel would cost.

“I’m a lawmaker in Sydney, which is choking with traffic. How much to build a 50km tunnel through the Blue Mountains and open up the west of our State?” Buckingham asked Elon Musk and Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

He was responding to Musk’s call-to-action to “Join our underground movement.”

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Musk replied: “About $15M/km for a two way high speed transit, so probably around $750M plus maybe $50M/station.”

This is the route Buckingham suggests.

Source: Jeremy Buckingham
Source: Jeremy Buckingham

Here’s the full exchange:

Cannon-Brookes also described the plan as a “bargain for Sydney”.

Musk is currently working on a rapid transit tunnel beneath Los Angeles and the Boring Company has also been chosen to build a rapid transit link between Chicago O’Hare International Airport and downtown Chicago.

Musk is known for his bold ideas, suggesting the Thai children stuck in the cave last year be transported out using child-sized submarine-like vessels.

It’s not the first time Musk has assisted in Australian state infrastructure dilemmas. Tesla’s lithium ion grid battery in South Australia is set to grow exponentially in terms of storage capacity, Musk told shareholders last year.


Uber has also pitched bold transport plans for Australia. In a submission to an inquiry into Australian transit, the ride-sharing platform suggested it could transport Australian passengers through the air, via Uber Air.

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