A key subcontractor on Elon Musk’s future-ready underground transport system has walked off after claiming the tech tycoon refused to pay for work already done.
William Shane, owner of local company Shane Trucking and Excavating, pulled his workers off the Music City Loop site in Nashville on Monday because he says Musk’s company, The Boring Project, has only paid him five percent of what he’s owed.
“We were really skeptical from the beginning, and then since then, things pretty much just went downhill,” Shane told The Nashville Banner.
“We were supposed to be paid every 15 days. And then they switched accounting firms, and then it went from 15 days to 60,” he went on, adding it’s now been more than 120 days since they first broke ground at the site.
While Shane did not put a specific number on the backpay, he says it’s in the six figures, and that he has now hired a lawyer to help sort things out with Musk’s firm. Shane’s company previously worked with clients like the Nashville International Airport and the Grand Ole Opry.
A privately funded transit scheme, the Music City Loop aims to connect Nashville International Airport with the city’s downtown district through roughly 10 miles of underground tunnels, which will be used by a fleet of electric vehicles as part of a network operated by The Boring Company.
The breakdown raises fresh concerns about the project’s timeline, which had aimed to have the first segment of the loop begin in Spring 2026 and be completed by 2027.
Shane says he’s not alone in being left fronting the costs due to late payments from Musk’s firm, claiming other subcontractors have also now severed ties with the project. In addition to the pay issue, Shane also told the Banner that he and others have filed multiple safety complaints about the work site. Boring Company employees reportedly don’t wear protective equipment, such as hard hats, while on-site.
He also said he’d decided to finally abandon the city after his employees told him they’d been approached with offers to work directly for The Boring Company, rather than through Shane’s firm, which he describes as “actually a breach of contract.”
The Daily Beast has contacted The Boring Company for comment on this story. “It does look like we had some invoicing errors on that,” a representative told the Banner. “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.”
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