Elon Musk Inspired an Industry of Hyperloop Startups. Now He’s Building His Own

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 Corp. 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 Inc. 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.