The article describes several projects that failed, including ones such as Maryland where permits and environmental review were completed and Boring did not perform the work.

I want to agree with you, but there is also the facet of a man that promised to build something cheaper and better, without doing his homework. Regulations don't just fall from the sky.

If nobody ever tries to build things which are physically possible but are likely to be blocked by regulators, we will never learn what the true constraint is. Most people around us believe that economic growth slowed down to near standstill due to some physical/technological constraints rather than was regulated away. We need more people like Musk who expose the truth that the regulations and bureaucracy are the largest problem the West has been facing for the last 40 years.

  > a man that promised to build something cheaper and better

No such promise was made.

In fact, Musk explicitly went out of his way to say that he was not promising to do it himself.

Those regulations exist for a reason. If you dig tunnels underneath a city or town, you're liable to cause buildings to subside or collapse. This is not theoretical [1] - it happened in my city.

That it happened is not somehow an argument for paying less attention to tunnel digging projects either (the LCT was done at around peak "NSW government gives stupid handouts to private companies for our infrastructure").

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2005-11-02/balcony-collapses-int...

Hit piece. The corporate media is trying to force Musk in line with the Uniparty.

Elon Musk’s existence does not give rise to reality. The knowledge and ability to do these things is not his alone as clearly he relies on a lot of workers.

If society should really do these things is not for him to dictate via Twitter.

Musk is the only person that is both in a position to meaningfully push back against the depraved behavior of the corporate press, and the willingness to do so.

Exhibit A: https://twitter.com/michaelmalice/status/1595994522886234112

Exhibit B: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1597058841396797440

Despite his ridiculous antics, I'm cautiously optimistic.

Exhibit B: "That American media would argue against free speech in America – within the bounds of the law – is an utter travesty."

Exhibit C: Musk does exactly that. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1597285572699074560

> Musk is the only person that is both in a position to meaningfully push back against the depraved behavior of the corporate press

Two of his companies, SpaceX and the Boring Company, depend on public contracts. Tesla depended until recently on federal credits; it’s otherwise a B2C powerhouse. Twitter is a leveraged B2C ad business.

I’m a Musk fan. But nothing about him screams uniquely able to engage power centres. The evidence for the abrasiveness being performative is its total absence in China.

Musk IS corporate press.

Yeah I mean the public could not logon for a day to send a message too. I mean that as a euphemism for broader ideas I won’t elaborate on. But let Musk do it, we don’t want that responsibility.

Social media either makes it clear the general public is of immense restraint or too confused to know they don’t really owe carrying around in their heads any of this gibberish and could set aside the assigned work queues and focus on the ignored ones, like infra and healthcare. The government will respond to a populace with twice as many guns as people in a hurry at the slightest whiff of public comity.

Please save us, Musk! … the great white savior complex. Still seeking a high minded savior suggests confused by all the gibberish and noise which is intentional but often ends up being uncontrollable. The code gets deciphered and the old masters get outplayed at their own game. Gen Z grew up digesting this gibberish. I’m hopeful they’re inoculated against it.

Most of the general public are effectively NPCs who robotically repeat what is on the screen. I'm sure you know the behavior I'm talking about where someone expresses "their opinion" and it's word for word something they mindlessly parrot from Fox News or CNN or whatever they watch. That little context/fact check is extremely important. Recently, the White House tweeted bragging SS recipients were getting the largest increase in history. Context was added to the tweet to say it was legally required because inflation was so high and not a new action the government took. They were so embarrassed they deleted the tweet. That's real power.

I doubt Musk is really a high-minded savior figure. If he's just doing this to make money then that is fine by me.

That’s your reductive view of the public. I don’t think they’re dimwitted NPCs, but being treated disingenuously by people who think they’re NPCs.

The public is very aware they don’t deference to any particular individual. Musk, or you. At the end of the day twice as many guns as people in this country.

>but being treated disingenuously by people who think they’re NPCs.

Those non-NPCs either continue to vote for the people treating them this way and/or continue to behave as if their authority over them is legitimate.

From my reference frame you’re one of the NPCs

lol you played yourself by engaging with someone you perceive has having no mind.

I am reciting my own inner monologue reminding myself we’re each just one of billions, nothing special. None of my posts address anyone else specifically at all.

Qualified truth is relative. This is all generic language. You’re hardly saying anything novel. You’re no further beyond the edge of human understanding than I am.

You see it as I “played myself” I see it as you’re another meat bag full of themselves.

Did you know that organized religions were invented to exploit gullible people like yourself? Today, politicians, propagandists and populists use the same honed techniques.

Regulators didn’t force Musk to walk back from the autonomous vehicles sales pitch to the conventional sort.

Regulators didn’t force Musk to claim advances which were already common in the field.

Regulators didn’t force Musk not to ask why everyone else charged more.

Regulators didn’t force Musk not to do any research about legal requirements.

There are valid questions about why American infrastructure projects cost so much more than the rest of the world but that doesn’t mean that Musk’s problems are the fault of anyone but him. He’s good at marketing but as we’ve seen he only turns a profit where he can get a government guarantee and has a team managing his instincts to avoid him screwing up that gravy train on a whim.