Elon Musk Is Serious About Digging a Tunnel to Avoid Traffic

Billionaire CEOs -- they're just like us: They get frustrated when stuck in traffic.

So fed up was Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk that, in December, he tweeted plans to "build a tunnel boring machine and just start digging" to avoid congestion.

I am actually going to do this

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 17, 2016

While many interpreted the heat-of-the-moment comments as just another playful tweet, Musk today said he's making "progress on the tunnel front," and plans to start digging "in a month or so."

Exciting progress on the tunnel front. Plan to start digging in a month or so.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 25, 2017

The underpass will ostensibly start just outside the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, according to a follow-up message from the inventor. It will run below Crenshaw Avenue and Interstate 105, ending near the Los Angeles International Airport.

According to Google Maps, it should take no more than 15 minutes to drive from 1 Rocket Road to LAX. But factor in the city's renowned gridlock, and there's no telling how long the trip could take. For someone like Musk -- who likely frequents the airport for regular visits to and from Silicon Valley's Tesla HQ -- that uncertainty is not an option.

When pressed on Twitter by a fan asking if he is "seriously serious" about building an underground channel, Musk responds with a simple "Yup." He even includes "Tunnels" as an interest in his social network biography -- between Tesla, SpaceX and OpenAI.

Neither Musk nor SpaceX immediately responded to a request for comment.

The news comes two days after Musk attended President Donald Trump's meeting on manufacturing, joined by executives from Lockheed Martin, Whirlpool, Under Armour and Johnson & Johnson.

Backed by an administration advocating "buy American and hire American," Tesla's Gigafactory battery manufacturing plant in Nevada is expected to achieve full capacity by 2018, creating thousands of new jobs in the country.