Musk, TN GOP blindside Nashville with secret, bizarre Tesla-only airport tunnel project [View all]

[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.
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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)