Just over one year ago on August 12 of 2013, Elon Musk announced his vision for a transportation system dubbed Hyperloop. According to Musk, “The Hyperloop (or something similar) is, in my opinion, the right solution for the specific case of high traffic city pairs that are less than about 1500 km or 900 miles apart.” Prior to the announcement, the company did not own the Hyperloop.com domain name, and feedback was requested via two email addresses: hyperloop@spacex.com or hyperloop@teslamotors.com.
One year later, almost to the date of the announcement, it appears that Musk’s company has acquired the Hyperloop.com domain name.
Shortly after learning about Hyperloop, I began monitoring the Hyperloop.com domain name via DomainTools. It had been registered to a company that owns a number of exceptional domain names. After the announcement, the domain name began forwarding to a Hyperloop informational page within the SpaceX website. I don’t have details about whether there was a lease or another type of deal in place at that time, although I assume the owner was compensated for this.
This morning, I received a Whois monitor alert from DomainTools informing me that something changed within the Whois. The domain name was recently transferred from Moniker to Network Solutions, and the registrant is now listed as Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX). The domain name continues to resolve to the same page within the SpaceX.com website.
I reached out to the former owner of Hyperloop.com, and he does not wish to comment.
I used to live in the South Texas area where SpaceX is building their new spaceport… the nearest commercial airport of any size is, I believe, Corpus Christi, unless you want to go to San Antonio, either way, both are much closer than the 900 miles stated for the hyperloop. Wouldn’t it be a great way for SpaceX to get their people, and passengers, to their new spaceport at Boca Chica Beach?