
Elon Musk’s New Boring Co. Faced Questions Over SpaceX Financial Ties - adrianscott
https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musks-new-boring-co-faced-questions-over-spacex-financial-ties-11545078371
======
jonathankoren
Whoa. So he's diverting employees and equipment from investor backed SpaceX,
to a side venture where he owns _90%_ of the equity?

This is sketchy fiduciary duty. Right up there when he bailed out his
brother's SolarCity by having Tesla buy it because every car manufacture needs
to get into the rooftop solar business.

~~~
gamblor956
You're being voted down by the Tesla brigade, but you are absolutely right.
Given the de minimis SpaceX equity in BoringCo, Musk's use of SpaceX resources
without compensation by BoringCo is a flagrant violation of his fiduciary
duties to SpaceX's investors.

That's why it's been so important to him to keep his boards stocked with
friends and family--an actual corporate board of directors would have sent him
to the curb long ago.

------
woah
Could this be tunneling?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneling_(fraud)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunneling_\(fraud\))

------
StudentStuff
The Boring Company is on really shaky ground after the entrance cave in back
on Dec 5th and construction setbacks. It'll be interesting to see if they
survive, they're still in live or die startup mode.

~~~
SECProto
_The Boring Company is on really shaky ground after the entrance cave in back
on Dec 5th and construction setbacks_

I didn't hear of any cave in, and googling results in nothing. Care to explain
what you're talking about?

~~~
StudentStuff
Its remained relatively hush hush, but the entrance to the tunnel (not the
tunnel itself) experienced some damage from a cave in, delaying the December
10th public opening: [https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musk-pushes-back-opening-
of-b...](https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musk-pushes-back-opening-of-boring-
companys-la-tunnel/)

Presumably everything else is on track, but when it comes to geotechnical
engineering, stabilizing earth is challenging, and the engineers appear to
want to wait more than 3 or 4 days after the cave-in to see if their method of
stabilization (whether they used these neat ground screws, thicker walls, or a
pairing) is stable and ready for non-employees to be near.

~~~
SECProto
_Its remained relatively hush hush, but the entrance to the tunnel (not the
tunnel itself) experienced some damage from a cave in, delaying the December
10th public opening:_ [https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musk-pushes-back-
opening-of-b...](https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musk-pushes-back-opening-of-
boring-companys-la-tunnel/)

That article mentions absolutely nothing about a cave in. I wasn't disputing
the delay thing (definitely an issue with any project of Musk's), but claiming
that there was a cave in requires a legitimate source.

~~~
SECProto
I did more research and still came up blank - I saw a number of headlines
talking about "boring company caves in" \- but they use it as a metaphor for
them abandoning plans to extend the tunnel significantly. Not an actual cave
in.

------
electriclove
I'm glad SpaceX is private. There are legitimate concerns here but let the man
build his tunnels!

------
robertAngst
I'm somewhat horrified by the constant struggles Musk's companies have with
ethics.

Why is there a cult following when fraud and employee abuse is common?

~~~
chr1
Because there have not been any serious reports of fraud and abuse, and the
things he built are so important for the future of humanity, that even much
more serious accusations won't change the total balance to a negative for
Musk.

~~~
gamblor956
There have been dozens of articles detailing fraud and abuse at Tesla, quite a
few articles about Boring Co's liberties with the truth and its outright lies
to the people in the neighborhood where the tunnel is being built. SolarCity's
financials were so bad they went through multiple auditing firms before they
found one that would sign off on them.

All in all, Musk's companies have an above-average incidence of ethics- and
truth-related issues.

------
throwawaylalala
I mean, its pretty clear he’s building all the tech to colonize Mars. Boring
is an important part of that.

~~~
yellowapple
Indeed. Underground construction is the most effective way to protect against
environmental concerns like meteor strikes and radiation.

------
synaesthesisx
On the topic of The Boring Company, is anyone else going to the tunnel unveil
event tomorrow?

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onetimemanytime
Wait until Boring Co is bought by another Musk company like Musk did last time
with that failing solar company.

------
Eire_Banshee
Isnt it a subsidiary of SpaceX though?

~~~
adrianscott
Nearly $113M raised, wsj article says it owns only 6%

[https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/16/elon-musks-boring-co-
raise...](https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/16/elon-musks-boring-co-
raises-113-million-to-chase-a-pipe-dream/)

[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1737630/000173763018...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1737630/000173763018000001/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml)

------
keyle
un-paywall [https://outline.com/RcMRDF](https://outline.com/RcMRDF)

------
m3kw9
I really believe Tesla, Boring and SpaceX is part of a grand strategy that
will give Musk almost insurmountable moat.

~~~
jonathankoren
Serious question. Do you mean like a physical barrier? Similar to absconding
to New Zealand when SHTF and it’s TEOTWAWKI? In a very real sense, Mars is the
ultimate gated community.

See also [https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-rich-new-zealand-
doo...](https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2018-rich-new-zealand-doomsday-
preppers/)

------
mr_toad
It’s not like Musk hasn’t openly stated that the whole purpose of SpaceX is
Martian colonisation.

What do they think The Boring Company is really for? And Tesla, and Solar City
for that matter.

Perhaps if they aren’t smart enough to connect the dots they aren’t smart
enough to be investing in high risk private companies.

~~~
gamblor956
_What do they think The Boring Company is really for? And Tesla, and Solar
City for that matter._

Uh huh. Sure it is. That would explain why Solar City has thus far failed to
account for the significantly reduced amount of solar energy that reaches
Mars. Solar cells can't charge EVs fast enough _on Earth_. With the same panel
area, it would take most of a Martian year to charge a single EV _on Mars._

But as with the hyperloop, Musk has done a great job of getting people to fall
for his half-assed fantasies. Somehow though, whenever you actually try to
look into his ideas with more scrutiny, they always fall apart like a house of
cards.

~~~
SECProto
_That would explain why Solar City has thus far failed to account for the
significantly reduced amount of solar energy that reaches Mars. Solar cells
can 't charge EVs fast enough on Earth. With the same panel area, it would
take most of a Martian year to charge a single EV on Mars._

What are you talking about? Solar can charge an electric car just fine. Take
desired charge rate in kW, divide by nameplate power output of panel, and
that's how many panels you need. If you live somewhere with constraints on
solar input (eg reduction due to clouds, distance from sun, or night) then you
can increase the panel amount, maybe add some stationary batteries to
timeshift the input.

Edit: not meant as a personal attack at all, but noticed your other comments
around the thread are loose enough with the facts. Musk could learn a thing or
two :)

~~~
reitzensteinm
Your edit is very rude. If you're going to call him out, you should at least
take the time to give an example.

~~~
SECProto
Their profile says they don't read comment threads after 4 hours, so I didn't
think they will see. But my mention of "being loose with the facts" and "Musk
could learn a thing or two" was referring to another post of theirs where they
said:

 _There have been [...] quite a few articles about Boring Co 's liberties with
the truth and its outright lies to the people in the neighborhood where the
tunnel is being built_ \-
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18704761](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18704761)

I thought this was, itself, misleading - I follow the Boring Co pretty
closely, and I only saw one negative article re: the local neighbourhood
around the test tunnel - and said article was mostly raising the plight of the
locals with the airport/highway/industrial activity in the area. The Boring
Company was only attacked as a bit of a bogeyman.

Combine that with this sentence in their original post, which I did already
call out for being flagrantly misleading:

 _Solar cells can 't charge EVs fast enough on Earth. With the same panel
area, it would take most of a Martian year to charge a single EV on Mars_

The only way I can see that being true is if it's talking only about solar
cells on the roof of the vehicle (which no one technically minded should
expect to power a car).

~~~
gamblor956
[https://blog.pickmysolar.com/how-many-solar-panels-does-
it-t...](https://blog.pickmysolar.com/how-many-solar-panels-does-it-take-to-
fuel-an-electric-car)

From a pro-Tesla site. It would take 75 solar panels to charge a single Tesla
in a day. Max theoretical efficiency on Mars is roughly 1/15th of Earth norm,
not taking into account Martian weather, and assuming you are always somehow
directly facing the sun the entire Martian day. Take weather and the day-night
cycle into account, and it takes about a Martian year to charge one Tesla.

Google is your friend. A single search on Boring Co shows at least a dozen
articles about their misrepresentative claims, so I assume the Google
personalization filter is effecting both of our search results.

~~~
SECProto
Hey, thanks for the detailed response. My original post was calling out your
original point: " _Solar cells can 't charge EVs fast enough on Earth_". It
seems you now agree with me:

" _It would take 75 solar panels to charge a single Tesla in a day._ "

So indeed, you can charge EVs with solar panels, you just need more. 75x250W
panels can charge a 75kWh model S in one day, on average (equals
135000km/year). Such panels are available at consumer prices of $1/watt
including charge controller, so ~$20,000 would buy me the panels I need to
fully charge my car daily (4 times as much as I need).

 _Max theoretical efficiency on Mars is roughly 1 /15th of Earth norm, not
taking into account Martian weather, and assuming you are always somehow
directly facing the sun the entire Martian day._

These variables (martian weather, facing the sun) are similar to the issues
faced on earth with solar panels. And the solutions are the same on mars as on
earth: increase panels (aka overprovide) and include power storage, or include
an alternate power generation system. Ideally both. Where the weather can have
longer impacts (eg dust storms), an alternative power gen system (i.e.
nuclear) is likely better from a launch mass point of view, but that isn't
clear without doing the detailed math on it. That's before even getting into
details on how different a vehicle on another planetary body would be (eg the
lunar rovers had an 8.5kWh batteries and lasted multiple days - lack of
atmosphere and lower speeds and mass make a car much more efficient)

 _Take weather and the day-night cycle into account, and it takes about a
Martian year to charge one Tesla._

(or half a year if you double the panels, or a day if you have 365x the number
of panels, or....)

 _A single search on Boring Co shows at least a dozen articles about their
misrepresentative claims_

If by "misrepresentative claims" you mean missed deadlines and abandoned ideas
- I'd agree with that. Tunnel opening delayed, further extension of test
tunnel dropped in favour of full network at undefined future date. But that's
par for the course with everything SpaceX has done (eg Falcon Heavy delayed 6
years, Dragon Crew delayed years, BFR changing plans every time it's talked
about), and shouldn't be even a bit of a surprise for anyone who follows Musk.
As a member of the public who couldn't invest in SpaceX or the Boring Co even
if I want to, those things really don't affect me in any way - the goals
remain the same, and the progress remains ...progressive.

 _I assume the Google personalization filter is effecting both of our search
results._

Agreed.

~~~
gamblor956
We don't agree, but that's probably because I left some assumptions implicit
in my earlier comment.

At an average size of 65x39 inches, 75 panels is more panels than most
residential properties can fit; you would either need a mansion or a
commercial-sized property. I should have been clearer on this, but assuming
the number of panels that the average house can support (5-10), you're looking
at a week or two to charge an EV by solar panel at the typical Southwest
residence (longer, outside of the Southwest). Assuming the same solar panel
area on Mars gets you to the Martian year.

As for Boring Co, I'm not referring to the missed deadlines, but to their
claims that they wouldn't be tunneling under people's properties, and that it
wasn't a backdoor attempt to avoid environmental review, and their liberties
with capacity numbers, costs, and numerous other claims they've made in their
short corporate lifespan.

