Elon Musk Names His First Tunneling Machine After a Classic Wait for it…

It's safe to say at this point that Elon Musk has a fondness for offbeat names.

In the case of the Tesla car models, it has gotten him into some trouble. Tesla makes three different vehicles, the Model S, the Model 3 and the Model X -- which put together spell out S3X or SEX.

Some Tesla owners didn't quite get the joke, and thought that the Model 3 was an upgrade on the Model S, according to The Wall Street Journal.

However, for his more recent venture, underground tunneling initiative The Boring Company, Musk opted to go for a slightly higher brow choice for the name of its first tunneling machine.

Naming theme for tunnel boring machines will be poems & plays. Decided against plays & poems. Too obvious.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2017

First machine is Godot. Still waiting ... Don't know why, when or where.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2017

The name is taken from Waiting for Godot, the classic play by Samuel Beckett in which two characters named Vladimir and Estragon wait for someone named Godot who -- 64-year-old spoiler alert -- never actually shows up.

What that actually means for the fate of the new company is really anyone's guess. But Musk said that the next machine's name will likely be inspired by Robert Frost.

@Tragik187 Third one will be from Frost. Maybe the second.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 11, 2017

Nina Zipkin

Entrepreneur Staff

Staff Writer. Covers leadership, media, technology and culture.

Nina Zipkin is a staff writer at Entrepreneur.com. She frequently covers leadership, media, tech, startups, culture and workplace trends.

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