The Boring Company, a tunnel construction firm owned by Elon Musk, is planning to build an underground tunnel between Nashville’s airport and downtown.
In what Gov. Bill Lee described as a public-private partnership in which the company will cover the entire construction bill, the Boring Company claims it will build a loop between BNA and an unspecified downtown destination that will allow Tesla vehicles to make the trip under existing traffic in 8-10 minutes.
At a launch event hosted at the airport, Lee touted the plan as the future of commuting, boasting that the company chose Nashville as the site of its second such tunnel, following a similar project built in Las Vegas in 2021.
“They could have taken their next underground loop anywhere, but they saw something unique about Tennessee, and we’re really grateful that they did,” Lee said.
The event had the trappings of a tech product launch — sample Music City Loop-branded merchandise, a concept video displaying Teslas driving through neon-colored lights in the tunnel and repeated use of the word “innovation” by the speakers.
But concrete details were scarce, with no budget, route or precise timeline presented.
Though the company says it can build such a tunnel in two years, Lee hesitated to provide an estimated date of completion, noting that the two-year timeframe would start after construction began. Boring Company President Steve Davis said hiring for the project would begin as soon as Wednesday, noting that they aimed to recruit and make at least 50 job offers this week.
Despite the bullish approach, neither Davis nor Lee provided an estimate of when construction would begin, with Lee’s office only noting after the event that the first segment of the loop could be operational as early as the fall of 2026, though the exact route has not been determined.
Similarly, the pair omitted any details about the project’s cost or land-use agreement, other than Lee stating that the company would fully cover construction costs.
Still, Lee — with the support of U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Haggerty — seemed optimistic about the project’s completion, based on the Vegas tunnel.
“They’ve done it in Vegas. They have the technology to work through the existing conditions here in the state,” Lee said.
Hard ground
But Nashville’s topography is a lot different than that of Las Vegas.
Nashville’s hard rock formations make the act of boring more difficult. Perhaps more importantly, the city sits in a basin and has a foundation made primarily of soluble rock like limestone, earning Nashville a Karst topography designation, meaning it is prone to sinkholes and caves.
Davis briefly touched on the terrain in his remarks, but described the stone as a speed bump, not addressing any safety concerns about Nashville’s bedrock.
“By the way. Tough place to tunnel in Nashville,” Davis said, laughing. “If we were optimizing for the easiest places to tunnel, it would not be here.”
Davis continued describing the terrain as “way harder than it should be,” but said that was “an engineering problem that’s fairly straightforward to solve.”
Duffy and Lee repeatedly mentioned that the Boring Company had received a 99.57 percent safety rating from the TSA and Department of Homeland Security for a similar loop in Las Vegas when asked about the safety of constructing such a tunnel.
“I’ll echo the great record of The Boring Company,” Duffy said when asked about the safety of the project, again citing the security rating. “I’ll just tell you at the federal DOT, there is great excitement in thinking about how — at no cost to taxpayers, governor — you have a private sector investing in taking people off the road and moving them safely.”
The designation in question addresses operational emergency preparedness and security from threats and is not centered on engineering or construction viability.
Some skeptics
Notably absent from the event was Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, who was referenced more than once and apparently discussed the project with Lee, but who hasn’t shared a public stance on the plan.
Asked about the project, the mayor seemed undecided.
“We are aware of the state’s conversations with the Boring Company, and we have a number of operational questions to understand the potential impacts on Metro and Nashvillians,” O’Connell said in a written statement to the Banner.
Other Democrats denounced the project, raising similar questions about safety and feasibility, but also denouncing the nature of the agreement with Musk’s company.
“No responsible executive would give away unrestricted and unlimited underground property rights to an unhinged billionaire, who Donald Trump doesn’t even trust anymore, and grant him and his company exclusive access rights beneath our city and a monopoly to profit in perpetuity,” Tennessee House Democratic Caucus Chairman John Ray Clemmons (D-Nashville) said in a release, adding that going through with the project without due diligence would be “fiscally irresponsible and legally suspect.”
Rep. Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) called the project a “billion-dollar boondoggle for the ultra-rich” and “a privatized vanity tunnel for Elon Musk, a man with a long trail of broken promises.”
At the event, Rep. Justin Jones (D-Nashville), whose district includes the airport, was barred from entering and said the police were called to escort him out, according to a video he posted on his Instagram. Other members of the legislature, including Tennessee Speaker of the House Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville), were in attendance.
“It’s just troubling. I went because my constituents have questions about the accessibility and affordability of this project and if it’s in the best interest of our transportation and infrastructure needs,” Jones says in the video.
Jones said he was similarly removed from an event held at the airport by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier this month.
Progressive commentator Justin Kanew, who runs the Tennessee Holler, was also kept out of the event and subsequent press conference by BNA staff who repeatedly said it was out of their hands because “it’s the governor’s event.”
Duffy also denied the idea that this project would be given any preferential treatment by the federal government or Tennessee based on Musk’s former relationship with the Trump Administration.
“We don’t play favoritism. Good, bad or ugly, we’re fair shooters,” Duffy said. “Just like you guys in Tennessee, we don’t do anything different at the federal DOT.”
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