Hacker News Reader

Comment by schmidtleonard | Hacker News Reader

Never moved beyond "mars tunnel research" or "excuse to delay subways," depending on how cynical you are. It's on life support in the form of totally necessary tunnel projects at other Elon Musk companies.

View on HN

"Excuse to delay" is not a cynical read at all.

> Musk admitted to his biographer Ashlee Vance that Hyperloop was all about trying to get legislators to cancel plans for high-speed rail in California—even though he had no plans to build it.[1]

He knew it would delay CA-HSR and political will for it nearly died.

1. https://time.com/6203815/elon-musk-flaws-billionaire-visions...

I was curious whether this was true but it seems made up. The source is this part of his biography by Ashlee Vance. The actual quotes only support that he thought CA HSR was mediocre, which is what made him want to suggest something better. The idea that it was a tactic to delay HSR independently of a better project existing is just the biographer's speculation and isn't supported by his words.

https://x.com/parismarx/status/1167410460125097990

Note also that the excerpt in this tweet omits the subsequent page, which discusses how Musk began taking the project more seriously after being surprised by the amount of public interest. You can find the biography on libgen.

What a spiteful way to blow a ton of money

That's sorta Musk's primary operating mode. See also: the whole Twitter purchase fiasco (for a recent example), or the expensive lawsuit against the actual co-founders of the larger, more-successful tech company that bailed out his failing startup as a favor to him but didn't stroke his ego enough on titles (for a "this has always been his way" example)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com