Elon Musk

 Elon Musk’s Boring Company Is Tunneling Beneath Las Vegas With Little Oversight
by Daniel Rothberg for ProPublica and Dayvid Figler, City Cast Las Vegas
Jan. 8, 5 a.m. EST
Change Appearance
Republish
Co-published with City Cast Las Vegas

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Reporting Highlights

    The Vegas Loop: Elon Musk’s Boring Company is constructing a planned 68-mile tunnel system beneath Las Vegas where drivers will ferry passengers around the urban core in Teslas.
    Less Regulation: Despite its size, the project, because it’s privately funded, has not gone through the vetting typical of public transit systems, including lengthy governmental studies.
    Musk’s Worldview: Musk says regulation often stymies innovation, a view that now has added significance given his new role advising President-elect Donald Trump on government efficiency.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

Elon Musk’s Boring Company spent years pitching cities on a novel solution to traffic, an underground transportation system to whisk passengers through tunnels in electric vehicles. Proposals in Illinois and California fizzled after officials and the public began scrutinizing details of the plans and seeking environmental reviews.

But in Las Vegas, the tunneling company is building Musk’s vision beneath the city’s urban core thanks to an unlikely partner: the tourism marketing organization best known for selling the image that “What Happens Here, Stays Here.”

The powerful Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority greenlit the idea and funded an 0.8-mile route at its convention center. As that small “people mover” opened in 2021, the authority was already urging the county and city to approve plans for 104 stations across 68 miles of tunnels.

The project is also realizing Musk’s notion of how government officials should deal with entrepreneurs: avoid lengthy reviews before building and instead impose fines later if anything goes awry. Musk’s views on regulatory power have taken on new significance in light of his close ties to President-elect Donald Trump and his role in a new effort to slash rules in the name of improving efficiency. The Las Vegas project, now well under way, is a case study of the regulatory climate Musk favors.

Because the project, now known as the Vegas Loop, is privately operated and receives no federal funding, it is exempt from the kinds of exhaustive governmental vetting and environmental analyses demanded by the other cities that Boring pitched. Such reviews assess whether a proposal is the best option and inform the public of potential impacts to traffic and the environment.

continues.....