Musk, TN GOP blindside Nashville with secret, bizarre Tesla-only airport tunnel project

[Tanuki]

It is viewed by many an an experiment to further Musk's fantasies of building tunnels on Mars. It's not even an efficient mass transit plan, as the tunnel would be limited to service by individual Teslas! No independent geological/environmental impact assessment was done before it was rubberstamped by our MAGA governor and state government. Nashville was not represented on the board that made the decision or even informed in any way in the process.

https://nashvillebanner.com/2025/08/01/elon-musk-music-city-loop/
..."The proposed 10-mile tunnel for Teslas, bankrolled by Musk and greenlit by Gov. Bill Lee, is designed to connect Nashville’s airport with the city’s downtown core, a project that the governor called “the coolest announcement” in his nearly eight years in office, earlier this week.

While the governor and Republican leadership have touted the “innovative” project, Democratic leaders and members of the community said they felt blindsided by the Monday announcement of the project and, just three days later, the approval of a lease allowing the company to use the state property.

“When in Tennessee’s history has a project of this magnitude, one that could fundamentally alter our city’s infrastructure — one that literally, quite literally, undermines the foundation of our city — been rushed through with zero consideration or public input, zero transparency?” Sen. Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) asked ahead of the lease vote on Thursday.
...
More than a dozen people including a former Tesla employee, a high schooler, members of clergy and four members of the state legislature spoke against the project, repeatedly citing the speed and opacity with which the state was moving, the company’s patchy track record of completing projects and geological concerns about drilling through limestone in Nashville’s wet, sinkhole-prone climate." ...(more)

[Tanuki]

1. More:

https://nashvillebanner.com/2025/07/29/elon-musk-underground-music-city-loop/

..."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.
....
"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. "...(more)

[dalton99a]

3. +1

[spanone]

2. We have a republican house with a super majority, republican senate....

and a maga governor. This state is fucked.

[Initech]

9. Another state destroyed by Fox / MAGA.

Fox i's a cancer on this country. It needs to be eradicated.

[newdeal2]

4. He has a history of making these announcements that go nowhere

He was supposed to do the same thing in Chicago ten years ago but no work ever started.

As far as I know, the tunnel in Las Vegas is the only project he has completed and that’s pretty small.

[hatrack]

5. And full self-driving by the end of 2016 . . .

Yeah, whatevs.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

6. You mean the same useless piece of shit he's building in Vegas

[Midnight Writer]

7. Amazing to watch people line up to give money to an arrogant drug-addled fantasy-prone con man

The guy's motto is "Move Fast and Break Shit!" Would you hire a company with that motto to remodel your home, fix your car, or handle your healthcare?

Then why do we hire him to muck about in our government and personal lives?

[Tanuki]

8. He is still giving millions of dollars to GOP candidates

and election PACs, so there's that. Citizens of majority Democratic Nashville were not given an opportunity to vote on this mess.

[John Farmer]

10. This reads like an article from The Onion.

I hope it is!