Musk, Wiener spar over potential cuts to California’s unfinished $135B high speed rail

(The Center Square) - California’s $135 billion high speed rail project connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles is being targeted by the coming Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency as an example of wasteful spending.

State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, contends Musk, who owns electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, is just trying to “kill off the competition.

Late last month, DOGE shared California’s high speed rail project as a project of concern, noting the project’s original $33 billion cost and 2020 completion date, receipt of $6.8 billion in federal funding, and request for $8 billion more in federal funds.

The project is supposed to whisk travelers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in less than three hours, with the initial 171 mile operational segment in the sparsely populated Central Valley between Bakersfield and Merced estimated to $30-$33 billion to be operational somewhere between 2030 and 2033.

Wiener, who secured a $5.1 billion public transit bailout with state funds, positioned the post by DOGE — to be co-headed by Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — as part of Musk’s long attempts to “sabotage California high speed rail.

“Now he has government power & is trying to kill off CA’s high speed rail project,” said Wiener on X. “That’s why he pushed the scam hyperloop for so long and fed into the bogus claim that transit isn’t necessary because the magical hyperloop will solve everything.”

Wiener then said it’s up to the state, which the nonpartisan state Legislative Analyst’s Office said has “no capacity” for new spending and faces rising annual deficits that will rise to $30 billion, to increase public transit funding.

“Sadly, this situation is consistent with a general hostility toward public transit by the climate-denying Trump Administration. We’re going to have to fight very hard to protect transit funding,” continued Wiener. “And in California, we’re going to need self help for our transit systems.”

Many noted the absurd cost of the system, and compared it to the cost of flying; California is expecting to charge $86 per LA-SF rail ticket, which is more expensive than flying.

“For $130 billion, the expected cost of the CA high-speed rail, you could instead buy and operate 900 Boeing 737s to fly the entire population of San Francisco to Los Angeles and back every day for 7 years,” noted Ryan McEntush, a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz in the Bay Area, on X.

California is requesting $4.7 billion from the federal government to finish the initial Bakersfield-Merced segment, $4.5 billion of which will face approval from the Trump administration, says the Cato Institute. Should the Trump administration deny the funding request, the project’s future would remain uncertain.