Tesla paid for Elon Musk's Boring Company to dig a tunnel under Giga Texas, but why? (2024)

The Boring Company, which is owned by Elon Musk, announced that it finished digging a multi-million-dollar tunnel for Tesla underneath Gigafactory Texas.

But why?

On Monday, The Boring Company announced that its tunnel boring machine has emerged at the Tesla Gigafactory Texas south expansion:

This completes the digging part of the tunnel, which connects the Cybertruck end-of-the-line to the other side of the 130 toll road that goes through Tesla’s vast property around Gigafactory Texas.

Electrek first reported on Tesla’s plan to dig a tunnel at Gigafactory Texas back in 2022.

Tesla has disclosed that it is under contract with The Boring Company (TBC), which is under Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s control, and that the automaker paid $1 million to TBC in the first two months of the year (when it was last reported):

TBC is party to commercial agreements with Tesla. Under these agreements, Tesla incurred expenses of approximately $0.2 million in 2023 and approximately $1 million through February 2024.

Sources familiar with the matter say that the tunnel is purely to funnel Cybertrucks out of the end-of-line to the other side of the road.

Tesla had planned the tunnel before it had final plans for the Cybertruck end-of-line, according to sources.

The tunnel, which TBC says will be completed next month, has since become less useful since there are now two underpasses, one at the north end and one at the south end, that connect Gigafactory Texas to the other side of the highway.

The goal is now to autonomously send Cybertrucks from the end-of-line through the tunnel and into the new staging lot.

Electrek’s Take

I’m the first to admit that there can be synergy between Elon’s companies, but this appears to be stretching it.

A multi-million-dollar tunnel to get the cars out of the EOL? Why not just design the EOL to end out of the factory into the staging area?

Also, based on the timing of the project, it sounds like the tunnel came first, or at least the idea to have a tunnel at Gigafactory Texas came first, before they knew what it would be used for. With the two underpasses linking both sides of Tesla’s property fixing the main problem, it looks like they had to dig deep (pun intended) to find use for it.

To me, it looks like Elon is sending money from Tesla, which is publicly owned and under his control with little to no board oversight, to his privately owned venture, The Boring Company.