On a misty night last week, the growl of heavy machinery and white-hot glare of flood lights were the only indications that engineers working for billionaire Elon Musk were digging a tunnel beneath the city of Hawthorne.

At a nearby dive bar on Prairie Avenue, a group of friends drained their bottles of Modelo and walked to their cars, wondering aloud about what was taking shape under their feet. A research lab? A new freeway? And would they ever get to see it?

“We talk about it all the time,” said Jorge Ortega, 21, as the clang of equipment echoed from the tunnel’s terminus two blocks away. “I wish I knew more.”

Two years after Musk complained on Twitter that Los Angeles traffic was driving him “nuts” and that he was going to “just start digging” to escape it, his newest venture, the Boring Co., is slated to unveil its first tunnel Tuesday.

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