![]() One former employee recalls Davis’s partner bringing in eggs and bacon for breakfast after a particularly long night in the office. He is known to pace around the office or around Boring’s R&D property in Bastrop, Texas, while he talks on the phone. Davis is somewhat awkward as a presenter, but employees say he is matter-of-fact and extraordinarily intelligent. When Boring Company landed its official first project with the LVCVA, Davis moved from Washington, D.C., where he had been focused on a Baltimore Loop, to Las Vegas. Musk would say in 2018 that he paid around $10 million to build that first 1.14-mile demo project outside Los Angeles. He poured $100 million of his own money into the project, according to Isaacson’s Elon Musk, and requested Davis place an order for two boring machines, at $5 million a pop, that he had transported immediately to SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., to start digging. Though the name (and the 20,000 Boring Company–branded flamethrowers he sold) may have sounded like a joke, Musk was serious about the idea. In 2016, Musk became obsessed with fixing what he called “soul-crushing” traffic. Three former employees say it has been rare for Musk to show up on-site. Steve Hill, CEO of the public agency that runs the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCVA), told Fortune that Musk has been to Las Vegas a “couple of times” to look at the Loop. While he occasionally defends or promotes the Boring Company on X, the last time Musk tweeted any kind of new detail about it was in April 2022. Musk’s tunneling venture was allotted all of three pages in Walter Isaacson’s recently published 615-page biography-an apparent testament to how Musk’s attention has been diverted elsewhere over the past few years. The question, though, is can Boring finish that kind of a project? And how much will it really cost people to use when it’s all said and done? ![]() Whether it was the sport coat or the star power of his boss, in 2020, Davis received the unanimous support he needed from the council to start expanding Boring’s tunnel into the broader City of Las Vegas, and earlier this year he got the initial approvals for a 68-mile station system plan that would effectively turn Boring into Las Vegas’s public transit provider. (Davis, Musk, and several of Boring’s investors did not respond to requests for an interview.) Meanwhile Boring projects from California to Illinois, Texas, Florida, and Maryland have all fizzled or been disbanded. But on the ground, after seven years, Boring is only operating a mere 2.4 miles of operational tunnel, according to Las Vegas agencies and contracts reviewed by Fortune. The Boring Company has raised more than $795 million from venture capitalists on Musk’s big idea: underground, multi-station roadways where autonomous vehicles could shoot off individuals to their destination at speeds of 150 miles per hour. Goodman’s criticism stems from Boring’s inability to finish a public tunnel project anywhere else. (“Unlikely I can get him to wear a tie,” the lobbyist had said.) It was important he appear polished for, in particular, Mayor Carolyn Goodman, who has been one of the Boring Company’s most outspoken critics in Vegas. But one of the lobbyists Boring Company was working with at the time had prepped Davis prior to the meeting and encouraged him to look more professional, according to emails from the lobbyist to one of the city’s executive directors that were reviewed by Fortune. His employees rarely saw him in anything but his SpaceX running jacket and ball cap. Davis’s attire-a black sport coat and jeans-was unusually formal for him.
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