TL;DR
Elon Musk's tunnel company is pitching a bigger future than a taxi line under Las Vegas. On Oct. 19 it showed a tunnel truck carrying a standard 20-foot shipping container, captioned "Using TBC tunnels to transport freight." A month earlier it closed a UAE-led $3 billion round aimed at more than 150 kilometers, about 93 miles, of tunnels in the Emirates. Put together, the company is selling cities on an underground layer that could move people and goods out of traffic. What it has not shown is a freight customer, a route or the economics, and its one running system has carried far fewer riders than claimed. If the Gulf money turns into working networks, the underground city of old science fiction gets a real test bed in the desert.
Below the line, for paid subscribers: The full story: where it stands, how we got here and what's dated next; our Odds board on 5 milestones, starting with "The company names a paying freight customer or route by 2027"; our labeled speculation on what it adds up to; and every source.