"On May 28, hours after Nevada's workplace safety agency served notice of more than $400,000 in fines to Elon Musk's $5.6 billion tunneling startup the Boring Company, the phone rang at Nevada governor Joe Lombardo's office. Boring Co. president Steve Davis was on the line. Boring Company was challenging citations from Nevada's workplace safety regulator blaming it for chemical burns two firefighters had suffered in its tunnels during a training exercise."
"By the next afternoon, a group of high-ranking state officials, including the governor's state infrastructure coordinator who took the call, were convened in a room with Davis, who was himself wrapping up a stint in Washington D.C. helping Musk run the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). At the beginning of that meeting, the citations and finesamong the agency's largest in a decade and a potential threat to Boring's plans to build tunnels in other U.S. citieswere summarily rescinded."
"It appears they got to apply Project 2025's deregulatory schemes in real life. The DOGE philosophy had a longer reach than I thought. And Elon Musk, the world's richest human, was relieved of his obligation to fork over what amounts to be couch-cushion money for injuring his workforce. Nicely done all around. Soon, something else disappeared: The record of the Governor's office meeting with Musk's company was removed from a public document without explanation."
The Boring Company is building the Vegas Loop tunnels and faced more than $400,000 in fines after two firefighters suffered chemical burns during a tunnel training exercise. Boring Co. president Steve Davis contacted Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo's office, and the following day high-ranking state officials met with Davis. The workplace safety citations and fines, described as among the agency's largest in a decade and a potential barrier to expansion, were rescinded at the start of that meeting. Records of the governor's office meeting were later removed from a public document without explanation, and deregulatory programs like Project 2025 and DOGE are invoked as influencing outcomes.
Read at www.esquire.com
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