Kremlin’s Russia-Alaska tunnel pitch to Musk is ‘fascinating’

President Donald Trump stated Friday {that a} Russian proposal for Elon Musk and his tunneling enterprise, the Boring Firm, to construct an undersea rail tunnel by the Bering Strait was “fascinating” and he’d have to consider it.

“That is an fascinating one,” Trump stated when requested in regards to the urged tunnel from Russia to Alaska. “We’ll have to consider that. I hadn’t heard that.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated he was “not comfortable” with the thought following Trump’s response.

Kirill Dmitriev, an funding envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, urged in posts on Musk’s social media platform X that the mission could be partly funded by Moscow.

Dmitriev stated it could be “a 70-mile hyperlink symbolizing unity.”

A tunnel like this may historically price an estimated $65 billion to construct, stated Dmitriev, who’s head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, including that The Boring Firm and its expertise may doubtlessly cut back these prices to $8 billion and full the mission inside eight years.

“Let’s construct a future collectively!” he wrote.

Dmitriev’s suggestion adopted a name between Putin and Trump on Thursday, throughout which plans had been made to debate doable resolutions to the Ukraine Battle.

Trump stated Secretary of State Marco Rubio and different high-level advisors will meet subsequent week with a Russian delegation earlier than Trump and Putin meet in Budapest, Hungary, at a future date.

Musk didn’t reply to a request for remark in regards to the proposal.

Building of an undersea tunnel within the Bering Strait would require Musk’s Boring Firm to work by below-freezing temperatures in a area with out current infrastructure and with deep and frequent earthquakes.

The Boring Firm has no observe report of working by such situations.

Its earlier tunneling efforts had been accomplished in scorching, dry areas with loads of infrastructure and companies close by.

The Boring Firm was lately fined and cited by environmental regulators within the state of Nevada for an “extraordinary variety of violations,” ProPublica reported, citing public data. These violations included: digging with out approval, releasing untreated water onto metropolis streets and spilling waste from vans.

The Boring Firm is now engaged on a 10-mile tunnel mission from downtown Nashville, Tennessee, to its airport, dubbed the Music Metropolis Loop. Residents protested, partly, because of the lack of planning earlier than The Boring Firm mission was licensed within the flood-prone metropolis.

Musk’s automaker, Tesla, has provide chain ties to Russia, and the CEO has spoken with Putin about different issues previously few years.

The EV maker has bought thousands and thousands of euros price of aluminum from Rusal, an organization based by sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, CNBC beforehand reported.

Musk held secret talks with Putin in 2022, the Wall Avenue Journal reported in October 2024.

In a single occasion, Putin had pressured Musk to direct SpaceX to withold Starlink, its satellite tv for pc web communications service, from Taiwan as a favor to Chinese language President Xi Jinping, the Journal reported, citing two folks briefed on the request.

Beijing is a crucial ally to the Kremlin.

The conversations between Musk and Putin, who as soon as ran the KGB, reportedly occurred as Musk was within the midst of a leveraged buyout and takeover of Twitter, now referred to as X.

Working with NASA, Musk’s aerospace and protection contractor, SpaceX, has additionally launched Russian cosmonauts to the Worldwide House Station.

CNBC’s Chris Eudaily contributed to this story.