This is what I think is the biggest misunderstanding. He's not building anything. He's made that abundantly clear. He has zero intention of building the Hyperloop or any incarnation thereof. He's prompting a conversation, greasing the wheels of thought for a potential alternative to HSR. Good, let's see what does or does not come of it.

Right. But if I say "I want to build a mach 2 tunnel under Bakersfield" I'm a crazed moron. If Elon Musk does it, though, he must know something we don't, after all, he's a visionary.

SpaceX and Tesla are any other startup sprinkled with money. The roadster was a Lotus Elise with an electric motor - I've built Land Rovers with electric motors, it ain't no thing. The Model S in 2013 is pretty much exactly where the GM EV1 was in 2003. As far as SpaceX, rockets aren't easy to make, but it's not like Peenemunde wasn't 70 years ago. There's some prior art there... and when you've spent $1.2 billion dollars, you're within spitting distance of the original Mercury Program.

Elon Musk isn't an inventor, he's an entrepreneur. He didn't come up with Paypal, he bought it. He didn't invent the electric car, he invested in it. He didn't invent the rocket, he privatized it. And Hyperloop is orders of magnitude wonkier than anything even the craziest of crazies have thought up. It makes the Space Elevator look like a come-along.