David Calvert/Bloomberg via Getty Images Hill, as the state’s negotiator, had worked feverishly on the agreement, which provided $1.25 billion in tax incentives to Tesla. Musk would later praise Nevada as “a real get-it-done state.” Soon after the battery factory opened in 2016, Musk’s Boring Company was looking for a place to build a project testing its solution to urban congestion, an idea that sprang from Musk’s frustration with LA traffic. Leaders at the city of Los Angeles were interested. A regional transportation authority, Metro, has a say on public transit in the city, and California law requires an environmental review. But Boring and the city tried to sidestep the state law, claiming an exemption for building in urban areas. Residents, however, weren’t as eager to turn Boring loose. When neighborhood groups in West LA sued the city over the lack of environmental review, Boring settled with them and looked to build elsewhere. Musk has frequently railed against government scrutiny of his other companies, Tesla and SpaceX, and claims excessive government oversight has made it nearly impossible to build big projects in parts of the country. “Environmental regulations are, in my view, largely terrible,” he said at an event with the libertarian Cato Institute in June. “You have to get permission in advance, as opposed to paying a penalty if you do something wrong, which I think would be much more effective. To say, ‘Look we’re going to do this project; if something goes wrong we’ll be forced to pay a penalty.’ But we do not need to go through a three- or four-year environmental approval process.” Everywhere Boring tried, it struggled to start digging. In Chicago, where then-Mayor Rahm Emmanuel was a supporter, local leaders expressed skepticism about whether Boring could build an airport loop without public funding. In Maryland, where Boring and federal officials completed a draft environmental review in 2019 for a high-speed link between Baltimore and Washington, the company never started tunneling. That was, until it got to Las Vegas. In 2018, an executive who’d met Hill during the Tesla Gigafactory negotiations called him to discuss potentially bringing Boring to Las Vegas, Hill said. (Hill said Musk himself had previously pitched Hill on a Boring Company project in Northern Nevada.) Hill, now a leader at the convention authority in Las Vegas, was in a position to help. Funded by about $460 million in annual revenue from hotel room taxes and conventions, the authority is a force in local politics, channeling the influence of the gaming and tourism industry. The authority happened to be looking to build a people-mover to link exhibit halls at the 4.6 million-square-foot Las Vegas Convention Center. Hill said he already had a sense that the Boring Company’s concept “would work pretty well here.” Nine companies submitted bids, and two were finalists. Boring’s bid was about a third of the cost of the other credible proposals, Hill said. A week before the board was to select the winner, Hill called a news conference and announced the Boring partnership. He pointed to a map of a tunnel system extending far beyond the convention center — to the airport and toward Los Angeles. The authority boasted that news coverage of its Boring partnership was picked up by 1,200 outlets, providing $1.3 million in free publicity for Las Vegas. The Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada is the planning agency for the Las Vegas metropolitan area, overseen by local elected officials. But because Boring’s project started so small and didn’t use federal funding, the commission wouldn’t have a say. The convention authority’s governing board, which focuses more on supporting tourism than transportation for local residents, took the lead. Nearly half of the authority’s 14-member board represents private interests, primarily the gaming industry. Goodman and two others voted against the partnership. To fund the convention center loop, the authority committed $52.5 million in bonds that will be paid back by the agency. Since it opened in April 2021, Hill said the authority has paid Boring about $4.5 million a year to operate the convention center loop, which provides free rides to conventioneers. The authority also spent $24.5 million to purchase the Las Vegas Monorail out of bankruptcy, giving Boring the right to tunnel in the monorail’s noncompete territory. Hill has repeatedly claimed, to elected officials, to local environmentalists and in an interview with ProPublica and City Cast Las Vegas, that the loop is the only viable way for Las Vegas to address its traffic congestion. “It’s not really a debate. There’s no reason to explore the other options,” he told members of the Sierra Club during a meeting to discuss public transit, according to Vinny Spotleson, volunteer chair of the environmental group’s regional chapter. Hill acknowledged to ProPublica and City Cast, however, “that’s a prediction. That’s not a mandate. I don’t have the standing to make that decision. I think people listen to what I have to say periodically." The Clark County Commission — which governs the Las Vegas Strip and surrounding areas — was listening when, just a few months after the convention center loop opened, Hill told them that Boring had already proven “how great a system this is, that it can be done, and I think provided confidence for this community to move forward.” At the urging of Hill, casino executives and labor union leaders, the County Commission approved a 50-year agreement giving Boring the right to operate a “monorail” above and below ground on county property. The 2021 vote was unanimous. In Las Vegas, Boring had achieved what it could not in Maryland, Chicago or LA. “All of their company, it seemed like, was dependent on Vegas working out,” said Spotleson, who first met company representatives around 2019 when he was district director for U.S. Rep. Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas. “That we were the test case that they wanted to take to the Chicagos and Bostons and other cities of the world and say, ‘Look at what we did in Vegas. We can do that here.’” An Expanding System The Boring Company has completed more than 5 miles of the 68-mile system. Despite the proposal’s massive scale, it has been approved with little public input. When the County Commission considered the expansion plans, they were listed on agendas under the obscure names of limited-liability companies, making it difficult for anyone but the company and its supporters to track. For example, the county approved a roughly 25-mile expansion and 18 new stations at a 2023 zoning meeting through a notice that gave no indication it was related to the Vegas Loop: UC-23-0126-HCI-CERBERUS 160 EAST FLAMINGO HOTEL OWNER L P, ET AL. In 2021, the commission approved an extension for Caesars Entertainment hotels under the name UC-20-0547-CLAUDINE PROPCO, LLC, ET AL, and about 29 miles of tunnel under UC-20-0547-CIRCUS CIRCUS LV, LLC, ET AL. Clark County and the City of Las Vegas Approved 68 Miles of Tunnels Between 2019 and 2024 In nearly six years, the company has built about 5 miles of tunnels, with even fewer miles in use. The Boring Company does not make available geographic data about its system. Maps were created based on publicly available reports. Locations may not be exact. Credit: