Idea Overload 326
of infrastructure in the US. “If it can actually make a
difference, I would gladly contribute funds and ideas. I’ve
super had it,” Elon said.^184
While SpaceX is in Los Angeles, Tesla is in San Fran-
cisco. Because Elon only owns a house in Los Angeles, and
it takes too long time to fly home when he has worked at
Tesla, he often sleeps over at one of his friends. “We play
video games together and eat some food,” Bill Lee said, who
was an early investor in both SpaceX and Tesla.^51
To travel between SpaceX and Tesla, Elon uses his
private jet because it takes too long time to drive. Flying
a jet is not to save the world from its dependency on oil,
so there’s clearly a need for a new type of transportation
between the cities that’s more environmental friendly than
an aircraft and faster than a car. The state of California had
the same idea and decided to build a bullet train between
San Francisco and Los Angeles. But the train wouldn’t
be a bullet. “Because the $60 billion bullet train they’re
proposing in California would be [one of] the slowest bullet
train in the world at the highest cost per mile,” Elon said.
“They’re going for records in all the wrong ways. Why are
we, in the center of high tech, doing such a bad job [with
transportation]? It’s embarrassing. It says all sorts of wrong
things about our state.”^51
Elon thought the story about the bullet train was sad,
so he came up with the Hyperloop. “I was thinking about
what could be better, state of the art?” Elon said. “That’s
where I came up with the idea for a fifth mode of Earth
transport, apart from planes, trains, automobiles, and boats.