Elon Musk’s The Boring Company silent on Dec. 18 tunnel-opening party While it’s unclear what the unveiling with look like, or whether it will even come off as planned, this might be a good moment to look back at the twists and turns that led us to where we are. With the help of various news outlets, Musk tweets, and reports from this newspaper’s sister, The Beach Reporter in LA’s South Bay, here’s a timeline: Dec. 20, 2016: Musk announces the birth of The Boring Company. February 2017: The company begins digging a 30-foot-wide trench outside the Hawthorne offices of SpaceX, another company run by Musk, according to Wired. Musk tells employees: “Let’s get started today and see what’s the biggest hole we can dig between now and Sunday afternoon, running 24 hours a day.” April 2017: At a TED conference, Musk estimates that his company’s project is more like a personal hobby, taking only a tiny fraction of his time. March 2017: Musk announces that in the next month his firm would start using a tunnel boring machine (TBM) to dig a usable tunnel at SpaceX property, according to Futurism.com. Late April 2017: A TBM is spotted at SpaceX, says a Business Insider story, with the company’s name on the side. May 2017: Various new reports say the TBM will be named “Godot” after the Samuel Beckett play “Waiting for Godot.” Musk says the first tunnel’s route will be from Los Angeles International Airport to Culver City, then on to Santa Monica. July 2017: Musk says on Twitter that The Boring Company has received verbal government approval to build an underground transport system called Hyperloop that would connect New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Musk also uploads a video that shows a successful test of a prototype car elevator. October 2017: The Washington Post reports that the company has obtained a utility permit for the construction of the Baltimore-Washington tunnel from the Maryland’s Department of Transportation, and construction is cleared to begin the following January. Also, Musk announces that a second TBM will be named “Line-storm” after the Robert Frost poem “A Line-Storm Song.” November 2017: The company reports it has now filed for a permit with Los Angeles regulators to bore a tunnel along Interstate 405 from Hawthorne to Westwood, according to the Los Angeles Times. Early 2018: The Boring Company is spun off from SpaceX into its own corporate entity, says The Verge, with Musk retaining more than 90 percent of equity. March 2018: Musk announces that the company had rethought its plans and would now prioritize moving pedestrians and cyclists over cars. June 2018: Multiple news outlets report that the city of Chicago chooses Musk’s company over competing bids to build a high-speed transportation corridor between downtown and O’Hare International Airport. Nov. 16, 2018: The company releases video of its giant earth-cutting machine as it emerges out of the ground at property on 120th Street near Prairie Avenue in Hawthorne that Boring bought close to its test tunnel. Nov. 28, 2018: The company announces it has killed plans to build a tunnel beneath Sepulveda Boulevard on the west side of Los Angeles after facing a lawsuit from residents, according to the L.A. Times. Musk says he instead will focus on the proposed “Dugout Loop” tunnel that would run from downtown Los Angeles to Dodger Stadium. Early December, 2018: A giant tower made out of bricks is taking shape at The Boring Company’s Hawthorne headquarters, a structure that Musk describes in a Tweet as “medieval futurism.” Dec. 18, 2018: The planned unveiling of the test tunnel, per Musk’s Dec. 14 tweet: