Elon Musk’s Boring Company Will Sell Lego-Like Bricks
Move over, hats and flamethrowers: Life-sized Lego bricks are the latest merchandise from Elon Musk’s Boring Co. The bricks are made of rock extracted during The Boring Company’s drilling, and according to tweets from Musk, they interlock and have a “precise surface finish” so they could double as affordable housing materials. Initially, they’ll be sold in kits to recreate versions of ancient Egyptian structures like pyramids and the Sphinx.
Musk says the bricks are rated for California seismic loads, so they should be plenty strong, and that they’ll be bored in the middle so they aren’t nearly as heavy as they look. More than that, two people could use the bricks to build a small house’s outer structure in “a day or two.”
The Boring Company has already referred to the brickmaking operation in its online FAQ, although the website makes it sound as if the bricks would be made from dirt rather than rock:
“In typical tunneling projects, excavated dirt is shipped offsite to disposal locations. This process is costly, time-consuming, noisy, and can be environmentally hazardous. The Boring Company is investigating technologies that will recycle the earth into useful bricks to be used to build structures. This is not a new concept, as buildings have been constructed from earth for thousands of years including, according to recent evidence, the Pyramids. These bricks can potentially be used as a portion of the tunnel lining itself, which is typically built from concrete. Since concrete production accounts for 4.5 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, earth bricks would reduce both environmental impact and tunneling costs.”
There isn’t a timeline for when you’ll be able to purchase these, either, but Musk says they’ll go on sale soon.
