As far as I know, he simply came up with the original idea and refined it with his engineers from both SpaceX & Tesla. He 'open sourced' all of it in hopes someone else would try and actually build it (perhaps with his help). I suppose this is the "someone else."
As far as I know, following what you said, and nobody taking interest; Elon decided he would do 'something' which he never disclosed. I am leaning towards actual involvement here:
> Brogan BamBrogan (Interim CEO, CTO, Co-Founder): Prior to Hyperloop, Brogan was an early team member at SpaceX where he saw firsthand the power of a truly bold vision.
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