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$19 trillion tunnel between New York and London? Musk backs a plan that engineers say could take centuries to build

By JUN 26, 2025 11:50 AM 4 MIN READ
Elon Musk New Tunnel Credits: NASA
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Elon Musk has been at the forefront of technological innovation for a while now. From electric cars to spaceships that can transport people, the businessman is always breaking new ground. Things are going well as SpaceX and Tesla are among the most prestigious companies in their respective fields, but there has been a general concern about Musk’s commitment, particularly since he worked as a key advisor to Donald Trump for almost five months after Trump became the President of the United States.

The past few months have been tumultuous.

Initially, things went well, but both parties eventually decided to follow their own paths. Almost a week later, Trump and Musk started to exchange barbs on X (formerly Twitter), with the two sharing personal experiences and opinions about each other, turning the social media platform into a war zone.

The beef was settled after a while, as Elon published that he regrets some of the things he shared on X. On the other side, Donald Trump continued to post about his government and his plans for the future. With the days of the key advisor behind the South-African businessman, he can turn his focus to his companies and continue to develop one of the boldest projects of all time.

Elon Musk plans to build a massive tunnel between New York and London

Elon Musk has thrown his support behind an ambitious $19 trillion project to link New York and London with a tunnel that could carry travelers between the two cities in under an hour. The Boring Company, one of Musk’s ventures, aims to build a tunnel deep under the Atlantic, claiming it can be done for a fraction of the cost of traditional methods, roughly 1,000 times cheaper. The concept centers on magnetic trains moving through a nearly air‑free tube, allowing them to reach speeds of roughly 4,800 km/h.

The businessman has been talking about this approach for more than a decade. In 2013, he laid out the idea in a paper that drew a lot of attention, putting the term “Hyperloop” into the public conversation. At the time, he floated the possibility of connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles with this technology.

More than a decade later, the Hyperloop is still largely in its early stages. While a handful of test tracks have been built by Musk’s Boring Company and other firms in places like India and China, no commercial Hyperloop system is in operation today. Some rumors point out that the concept has struggled to prove itself and remains impractical and costly. The Boring Company itself has quietly shifted focus, putting more effort into building traditional underground tunnels for cars instead.

This is not a new idea

The idea of a tunnel between the U.S. and the U.K. is far from new. Engineers and dreamers have been exploring it for over a century, and it really caught people’s eye early 1900s before being abandoned as too costly and complex. Even today, the scale of the challenge is daunting — a tunnel more than 3,000 miles long, suspended in the ocean or buried deep beneath the seabed. For context, the Channel Tunnel between France and the U.K. is just 23 miles long and took six years to complete. At that rate, a tunnel across the Atlantic could take centuries to build.

The project lacks confirmation

The Boring Company’s claim to build a tunnel under the Atlantic for much less than typical costs has attracted attention, but no solid proof has been shared to back it up. Although advances in vacuum-train technology have made high‑speed trans‑Atlantic travel an intriguing concept, no detailed plan, confirmed funding, or timeline has been announced.

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Marcelo C.Staff Writer