He later tweeted that the Los Angeles route could be built in parallel with a New York-Washington DC track, followed by connections to San Francisco and a Texas loop (Hyperloop recently held a route competition to pick the most feasible ones). The only problem? None of the cities had publicly confirmed any of Musk’s plans at the time, and all denied any talks had even begun.

A White House spokesman later said the Trump administration had “promising conversations” with Musk, apparently the source of Musk’s verbal approval. In October, Maryland governor Larry Hogan tweeted (paywall) his administration was proud “to support The Boring Company to bring rapid electric transportation to MD — connecting Baltimore City to D.C.” The state issued the Boring Company a utility permit to dig 10 miles of tunnel below state-owned portions of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway.

Musk has been teasing the arrival of the tunnels for months. In October, Musk wrote on Twitter that his company had bored 500 feet of the 2 miles (10,560 feet) that it plans to complete over the next four months. It received approval to build a two-mile test tunnel in August from Hawthorne’s city council.

📬 Sign up for the Daily Brief

Our free, fast, and fun briefing on the global economy, delivered every weekday morning.