Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk have criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s high-speed rail project after a new Wall Street Journal report said the long-delayed system could ultimately cost as much as $231 billion.
Quarter of a Trillion Dollars
DeSantis took to the social media platform X on Wednesday, sharing a screenshot of a Wednesday report by the Wall Street Journal that estimated the project could cost up to $231 billion, with its full-scale operations expected to begin in 2040. “That this could reach nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars is mind blowing…” DeSantis said in his post.
Musk, responding to DeSantis, also criticized the project. “It’s just a big scam,” he said. Musk had earlier slammed the project, saying that his tunneling startup The Boring Co. could “build a Hyperloop tunnel from downtown SF to downtown LA for <5%” of the project’s cost.
California High Speed Project
The project, which is planned to run along a 494-mile path from San Francisco to Anaheim in Phase 1, has reached a phase where 463 miles of the track are ready for construction, according to Newsom. The project has been criticized by President Donald Trump’s Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, who called it a “train to nowhere,” slamming its high costs.
The Trump administration recently allocated more than $2 billion reserved for the project towards upgrading the Amtrak rail system, saying that the figure was being redirected towards rail projects.
Xavier Becerra, who won the Democratic Primaries to replace term-limited Newsom in November’s California gubernatorial election, earlier said that he would scrap the project in its current phase. “We need high-speed rail in California,” he said, reaffirming his support for the project.
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