Elon Musk Is Sending Engineers To Help Rescue Boys Trapped in Thai Cave

The billionaire tycoon sent engineers from SpaceX and The Boring Company to rescue the trapped youth soccer team—this is how they plan to do it.

Elon Musk Promo
(Photo: Getty)

Elon Musk has shifted his focus from flamethrowers and Teslas to a humanitarian rescue mission. 

The billionaire entrepreneur has become involved in the race to save a team of 12 young soccer players and their coach from the bowels of a waterlogged cave in northern Thailand.  

After a lengthy Twitter exchange with James Yenbamroong, a Bangkok-based tech mogul who facilitated contact with the Thai government, Musk tweeted that engineers from Space X and The Boring Company are en route to aid in the rescue efforts. 

“SpaceX & Boring Co engineers headed to Thailand tomorrow to see if we can be helpful to govt,” Musk wrote. “There are probably many complexities that are hard to appreciate without being there in person.”

Musk first posed possible methods to reach the trapped party after a fan reached out to him on Twitter. Yenbamroong joined the conversation soon thereafter. 

Other Twitter users chimed in to offer advice and point out potential obstacles. 

Yenbamroong responded to Musk with further information, including a photo and diagram of the cave. 

The complexities noted by Musk have created a dire situation that’s pitted rescuers against the clock. 

CNN has up-to-date details: 

The boys, members of a youth football team, and their coach have been trapped in the labyrinthine cave at the Tham Luang Nang Non complex for nearly two weeks, unable to navigate their way out of a series of narrow passages after floodwaters forced them to take shelter on a rocky ledge.

Officials initially thought they could keep the boys and their coach in the cave where they are trapped for up to four months, until waters dropped sufficiently for them to be able to walk out.

But the death of a rescue team member, and the realization that oxygen levels have fallen to potentially dangerous levels, appears to have forced a reassessment of the situation.

The deceased rescue team member is former Sgt. Saman Kunan, an ex-Thai Navy SEAL. USA Today reports that the 38-year-old triathlete died while placing oxygen tanks along the underwater route leading to the stranded boys. 

Hopefully this story has a happy ending. 

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