Musk founded The Boring Company in 2017 with the vision of remaking urban transit. The company is currently building the Vegas Loop, a planned 68 mile tunnel system beneath Las Vegas. Boring has raised more than $795 million in capital, at a $5.6 billion valuation, from venture capital firms including Sequoia Capital, Valor Equity Partners, and Vy Capital, Fortune has reported. But Boring, which spun out of SpaceX in 2018, isn’t your everyday tunnel maker. That year, Boring created a media sensation when it sold 20,000 flamethrowers—and named them “not-a-flamethrower.”
But how does Musk find time to run this tunnel company when he already runs five other companies, including Tesla, while also running a swath of the federal government? The answer is he relies on people like Steve Davis, a SpaceX engineer with a penchant for wackiness. Davis, while working for SpaceX in Washington D.C., missed California-style frozen yogurt, so he opened his own shop, Mr. Yogato. He also owned a bar in D.C., called Thomas Foolery, that gave 10% off to anyone who dressed up as Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
