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Elon Musk is famous for electric vehicles, reusable rockets, and satellites that can beam down high-speed internet to the most remote regions of the planet. But in 2016, he set his sights lower. The idea was to create a company that would solve traffic by building a system of underground tunnels.

Musk founded The Boring Company in 2017. In a video released that same year, the Boring Company teased a system in which cars and public transportation pods are lowered underground by metal platforms and proceed to zoom through tunnels at 124 mph, unimpeded by pesky traffic. The problem with tunnels, Musk said during an event unveiling the company’s first demo tunnel in 2018, was that they take a long time to build and are very expensive.

“The LA subway extension that [was] just completed cost $2 billion for two and a half miles. There was a subway extension in New York that I think cost $2 billion for a mile,” Musk said during the event. “So clearly, something needs to be done to revolutionize tunneling technology. We need to be able to build tunnels way faster and for a lot less money.”

At the event, reporters were taken on test rides through the tunnel at speeds of up to 50 mph, much slower than the 150 mph that Musk envisioned. The ride was also pretty bumpy, as the alignment wheels attached to the Teslas bounced off the side track walls.

Though still rudimentary, the demo tunnel inspired confidence in investors and customers alike. Early on, the Boring Company was largely floated by Musk, but $1 million also came from the sale of 50,000 hats and another $10 million from the sale of 20,000 company-branded flamethrowers. Musk even tried to sell dirt excavated from the tunnel as Lego-like bricks.

In 2019, the Boring Company brought in its first outside investment. The $120 million funding round came shortly after the company landed its first paying customer: the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The Las Vegas Convention Center Loop opened to the public in June. The 1.7-mile stretch of underground road cost the convention authority $52 million and took the Boring Company about 18 months to complete. It marked the company’s first completed public project, but many of its other proposed projects have hit dead ends.

“Many construction professionals will tell you that, you know, it’s not the speed of the tunnel boring that you need to worry about. It’s the environmental review. It’s the bureaucratic procedure. It’s the permits,” says NBC News’ Cyrus Farivar, who reported on some of the Boring Company’s stalled projects.

Despite the challenges, cities such as Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, seem eager to partner with the Boring Company. 

“We have now spoken with the Boring Company about building a 2.2-mile tunnel from our railroad station, called the Bright Line Station, which is in the middle of the city, all the way to the beach,” Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis told CNBC. “And it would be two tunnels, one going east, one going west. And the business model is that you have Tesla vehicles with drivers that ferry you under the streets, through to the beach, completely eliminating all the traffic.”

Trantalis said that rough estimates from the Boring Company put construction costs between $10 million and $15 million per mile, not including the cost of the stations. Details are still being worked out, but users of the tunnel would likely pay a fee for the service. The city is taking other bids for the project, but Trantalis said Fort Lauderdale already worked out a lot of the bureaucratic hang-ups that caused the proposed Boring Company projects to falter in other cities. 

Watch the video above to find out more.

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Tesla shares drop 7% in premarket trading after Elon Musk says he is launching a political party

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Tesla shares drop 7% in premarket trading after Elon Musk says he is launching a political party

White House Senior Advisor Elon Musk walks to the White House after landing in Marine One on the South Lawn with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured) on March 9, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Samuel Corum | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Tesla shares fell in premarket trade on Monday after CEO Elon Musk announced plans to form a new political party.

The stock was down 7.13% by 4:27 a.m. E.T.

Musk said over the weekend that the party would be called the “America Party” and could focus “on just 2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts.” He suggested this would be “enough to serve as the deciding vote on contentious laws, ensuring that they serve the true will of the people.”

The billionaire’s involvement in politics has been a point of contention for investors. Musk earlier this year was part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and worked closely with President Donald Trump — a move seen as potentially hurting Tesla’s brand.

Musk left DOGE in May, which helped Tesla’s stock.

Now tech billionaire’s reinvolvement in the political arena is making investors nervous.

“Very simply Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story,” Dan Ives, global head of technology research at Wedbush Securities, said in a note on Sunday.

“While the core Musk supporters will back Musk at every turn no matter what, there is broader sense of exhaustion from many Tesla investors that Musk keeps heading down the political track.”

Musk’s previous political foray earned him Trump’s praise in the early days, but he has since drawn the ire of the U.S. president.

The two have clashed over various areas of policy, including Trump’s spending bill which Musk has said would increase America’s debt burden. Musk has taken issue to particular cuts to tax credits and support for solar and wind energy and electric vehicles.

Trump on Sunday called Musk’s move to form a political party “ridiculous,” adding that the Tesla boss had gone “completely off the rails.”

Musk is contending with more than just political turmoil. Tesla reported a 14% year-on-year decline in car deliveries in the second quarter, missing expectations. The company is facing rising competition, especially in its key market, China.

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AI chip startup Groq expands with first European data center

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AI chip startup Groq expands with first European data center

Jonathan Ross, chief executive officer of Groq Inc., during the GenAI Summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, May 30, 2024.

David Paul | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Artificial intelligence semiconductor startup Groq announced Monday it has established its first data center in Europe as it steps up its international expansion.

Groq, which is backed by investment arms of Samsung and Cisco, said the data center will be located in Helsinki, Finland and is in partnership with Equinix.

Groq is looking to take advantage of rising demand for AI services in Europe following other U.S. firms which have also ramped up investment in the region. The Nordics in particular is a popular location for the data facilities as the region has easy access to renewable energy and cooler climates. Last month, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was in Europe and signed several infrastructure deals, including data centers.

Groq, which is valued at $2.8 billion, designs a chip that the company calls a language processing unit (LPU). It is designed for inferencing rather training. Inferencing is when a pre-trained AI model interprets live data to come up with a result, much like the answers that are produced by popular chatbots.

While Nvidia has a stranglehold on the chips required for training huge AI models with its graphics processing units (GPUs), there is a swathe of startups hoping to take a slice of the pie when it comes to inferencing. SambaNova; Ampere, a company SoftBank is in the process of purchasing; Cerebras and Fractile, are all looking to join the AI inference race.

European politicians have been pushing the notion of sovereign AI — where data centers must be located in the region. Data centers that are located closer to users also help improve the speed of services.

Global data center builder Equinix connects different cloud providers together, such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud, making it easier for businesses to have multiple vendors. Groq’s LPUs will be installed inside the Equinix data center allowing businesses to access Groq’s inference capabilities via Equinix.

Groq currently has data centers in the U.S. and Canada and Saudi Arabia with its technology.

Don’t miss Groq CEO Jonathan Ross on Squawk Box Europe at 7:45 a.m. London time.

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Inside a Utah desert facility preparing humans for life on Mars

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Inside a Utah desert facility preparing humans for life on Mars

Hidden among the majestic canyons of the Utah desert, about 7 miles from the nearest town, is a small research facility meant to prepare humans for life on Mars.

The Mars Society, a nonprofit organization that runs the Mars Desert Research Station, or MDRS, invited CNBC to shadow one of its analog crews on a recent mission.

MDRS is the best analog astronaut environment,” said Urban Koi, who served as health and safety officer for Crew 315. “The terrain is extremely similar to the Mars terrain and the protocols, research, science and engineering that occurs here is very similar to what we would do if we were to travel to Mars.”

SpaceX CEO and Mars advocate Elon Musk has said his company can get humans to Mars as early as 2029.

The 5-person Crew 315 spent two weeks living at the research station following the same procedures that they would on Mars.

David Laude, who served as the crew’s commander, described a typical day.

“So we all gather around by 7 a.m. around a common table in the upper deck and we have breakfast,” he said. “Around 8:00 we have our first meeting of the day where we plan out the day. And then in the morning, we usually have an EVA of two or three people and usually another one in the afternoon.”

An EVA refers to extravehicular activity. In NASA speak, EVAs refer to spacewalks, when astronauts leave the pressurized space station and must wear spacesuits to survive in space.

“I think the most challenging thing about these analog missions is just getting into a rhythm. … Although here the risk is lower, on Mars performing those daily tasks are what keeps us alive,” said Michael Andrews, the engineer for Crew 315.

Watch the video to find out more.

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