In 2013, Elon Musk unveiled his outline for a feasible hyperloop (vacuum tube train) connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco. Musk's proposed hyperloop would allow passengers to travel the 400 mile distance in only 30 minutes! And was projected to cost only $6 billion (though this is widely considered a low underestimation). Eventually, this first route would become part of a much larger, countrywide Hyperloop network.

Since then, there has been an explosion in interest in hyperloops that has resulted in a race amongst numerous start-ups to flesh out a real, working hyperloop. Already, these companies have attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in investment (one company, Hyperloop One, managed to secure $80 million dollars in a single round of venture capital investment back in May)!

Following the 2016 election, Donald Trump's proposal for a wall on the US-Mexican border is likely to become reality. Between the cost of acquiring land, the materials, labor, and other logistics of construction, Trump's Wall is projected to cost approximately $25 billion, with billions in maintenance costs thereafter.

However, many of the essential components of a Hyperloop: securing the rights to the land to build on, engineering labor, and a strong concrete foundation, will be be present in The Wall. Assuming that Trump's Wall will stretch from El Paso to San Diego, which is roughly 750 miles, then theoretically, building a Hyperloop into The Wall will cost no more than $36 billion, and likely less.