Blasting from New York to DC in 29 mins

NEW YORK - US entrepreneur Elon Musk said on Thursday he'd received "verbal approval" from the government to build a conceptual "hyperloop" system that would blast passenger pods down vacuum-sealed tubes from New York to Washington at near-supersonic speeds.

"Just received verbal govt approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins," the flamboyant CEO of Tesla and SpaceX tweeted, using abbreviations for New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington DC.

New York and Washington are separated by some 330 kilometers - currently an approximately three-hour journey by train or one hour and 15 minutes flying.