Elon Musk Inspired an Industry of Hyperloop Startups. Now He's Building His Own (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Elon Musk introduced his vision for a futuristic mode of tube-based transportation called the hyperloop in 2013. In an exhaustive white paper, he laid out a body of research conducted with his team at Space Exploration Technologies demonstrating the system's viability and seemingly offered it as a gift to the entrepreneurial community. "I don't have any plan to execute because I must remain focused on SpaceX and Tesla," he said in a conference call at the time. He apparently changed his mind. Last month, the SpaceX and Tesla chief executive officer revealed on Twitter that he'd received "verbal government approval" to build a hyperloop capable of ferrying passengers between New York and Washington, D.C., in 29 minutes. The tweet came as a shock to executives at the various startups racing to develop their own hyperloops based on Musk's specifications. Several of them initially expressed hope that Musk would simply dig the tunnels and perhaps choose one of their startups to create the physical infrastructure, which involves a tube-encased train traveling at speeds faster than an airplane. Nope. A person close to Musk said his plan is to build the entire thing, including the hyperloop system. Musk also holds a trademark for "Hyperloop" through SpaceX, which could be used to prevent other companies from using the term, according to U.S. public records. The billionaire's unexpected entry into the hyperloop business could threaten the ambitions of three startups, which have raised about $200 million combined from venture backers. "There's probably a finite amount of capital willing to bet on this space -- and bet against him," said Jonathan Silver, the former loan programs director at the U.S. Department of Energy. Silver learned not to underestimate Musk after overseeing a 2010 loan of $465 million to Tesla, which the electric carmaker paid back, with interest, nine years ahead of schedule.

Comments

Re:the ego on this clown

[Oswald McWeany]

This guy wants to be Steve Jobs so bad it's fucking comical. Steve Jobs was unduly idolized and poor musk wants the same thing so badly. You've nor your company have innovated anything. The US Tax Pay funded both Tesla and SolarShitty. Now you think a train is a technological marvel...

Well, in all fairness, he's already done more to help mankind so far than Jobs did. Jobs made some great commercial electronics but nothing revolutionary. The iPhone was a well put together piece of equipment and his best contribution, but it's not like there weren't already similar products before, and co-currently being worked on by other teams. His was just better than anything else in the beginning... the smart phone revolution was dawning anyway- he just made it better and maybe sped it up a year or two.

Musk on the other hand has single handedly pulled the world up and made electric cars a reality. It's not the fringe technology we might develop 20 years from now, in perpetuity any more.

His impact is so big, countries are beginning to mandate electric cars in the future His impact with electric cars has also spurred a battery revolution for solar panels- solar panels were coming anyway, so were home batteries- but he's made big impacts there.

He has leapstarted self driving vehicles. Whilst Google has been floundering for a decade- Tesla has gone ahead and done it and made it a reality. Maybe not whole-hog, maybe not even close, but his baby steps towards self-driving has made the technology a reality and other automanufacturers are taking note.

He's also been leading the only really successful team for privatized space. Sure Virgin Galactic, and a few others are looking promising, but he's pretty much spurred a whole second space-age.

If Hyperloop works and doesn't turn into vapour, it promises to be a massive change on how we think about transport. I'm less optimistic for hyperloop than his other ventures, but it could potentially be a big shaker.

So yeah, Jobs had some nice consumer electronics, but Musk has already done more that is useful to mankind. He's not just turning over a profit, he's doing useful stuff that betters man. He long since overshot Jobs.