Reality Checking Elon Musk's Hyperloop Nothing Burger—Again

Many people noticed last week when Elon Musk took to Twitter to announce a momentous occasion for The Boring Company and The Hyperloop—those fanciful and futuristic ideas for super fast transportation that will forever solve the world's congestion, or at least Musk's commute through Los Angeles.

The momentous occasion: receiving "verbal govt approval" for an "underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop."

Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2017

Apparently some unnamed bureaucrat in some unnamed branch of some unnamed government didn't get the memo about all the reasons to be skeptical about The Boring Company. Nor did this granter-of-verbal-approvals get the memo about the reasons to be skeptical about the Hyperloop.

Aarian Marshall plays the roll of reality checker this time around, saying what many were thinking: "'verbal government approval' isn’t a thing." Marshall then explains what exactly it takes to build "a gigantic, multi-billion dollar, multi-state infrastructure projects in the United States of America." That is "Something nearing an act of God."

Laura Bill also gathered a list of reasons to be wary of Elon Musk's East Coast Hyperloop tunnel idea—five reasons, in total.