The Boring Company, Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, is reportedly facing significant issues with its new project in Nashville, Tennessee. A key subcontractor has walked off the job, alleging that the company has failed to pay for work completed on the “Music City Loop,” claiming they have received only 5% of what they are owed.
Shane Trucking and Excavating, a local contractor hired to handle preliminary work for the tunnel project, pulled its workers off the site this Monday. William Shane, the owner of the company, told the Banner that The Boring Company has “ghosted” them and failed to pay invoices totaling in the six figures.
According to Shane, the payment terms were initially set for every 15 days, then unilaterally switched to 60 days. Now, he claims it has been over 120 days since they broke ground, and his company has received only a fraction of the payment due.
“We were really skeptical from the beginning, and then since then, things pretty much just went downhill,” Shane said.
As The Boring Company was stiffing Shane on the bills, the company tried to poach workers from its own contractor and lied about it:
“One of their head guys texts two of my welders, offering them a job for $45 an hour from his work phone,” Shane described, noting that the same TBC employee denied sending the texts when confronted with screenshots. “That’s actually a breach of contract.”
On top of the missed payments, Shane alleges serious safety concerns. They made several official complaints to OSHA:
“Where we’re digging, we’re so far down, there should be concrete and different structures like that to hold the slope back from falling on you while you’re working. Where most people use concrete, they currently have — I’m not even kidding — they currently have wood. They had us install wood 2x12s.”
The Boring Company Vice President David Buss blamed missed payments on “invoicing errors” in a statement to the Banner:
“It does look like we had some invoicing errors on that. It was, you know, unfortunately, too common of a thing, but I assured them that we are going to make sure that invoices are wired tomorrow.”
TRUMP approves!