Elon Musk’s Las Vegas Loop Clears Last Major Hurdle for Expansion

Written by
Sarah McBride
Written by

Sarah McBride

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(Bloomberg) -- Soon, Elon Musk could be a Las Vegas transportation kingpin. On Wednesday, county officials unanimously approved designs for two additional tunnels connecting hotels with the Las Vegas Convention Center, clearing the way for Musk's Boring Co. to expand its first commercial underground transportation system.

Approval from the Clark County Commission is one of the last hurdles to a proposed expansion of a Boring Co. project burrowing underneath the convention center, which was largely finished in May but has yet to open for rides. One of the hotels connecting to the Loop, Resorts World, said it expects construction on the expansion to begin by the end of this year, Scott Sibella, president of Resorts World Las Vegas, said in an emailed statement.

In May, Musk tweeted that Boring Co. would “also connect Vegas hotels & airport.” Airport officials have held introductory conversations with the Boring Co. in recent weeks, according to Chris Jones, a spokesman for McCarran International Airport.

With the coronavirus pandemic curbing travel, including to Las Vegas, Boring Co. and its hotel partners may benefit from some extra time to get their projects ready. Boring Co. has said it's on track to finish the Vegas convention center Loop by January, in time for the massive Consumer Electronics Show, though conference organizers said last week that the event will be held exclusively online. A Boring Co. Loop to Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles is still mired in the city's environmental review process and missed a deadline for opening this year that had been set by the baseball team's financial chief.

A spokesman for Boring Co. said he didn't have more information on the hotel portion of the Las Vegas project. A spokeswomen for Wynn Resorts Ltd., owners of the other Vegas hotel that the Loop will connect, didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The remaining procedural steps for the expansion include building permits and a license and maintenance agreement from a county department, a spokesman for Clark County said.