A Nevada company tied to Elon Musk's tunneling venture just dropped $7 million on a stretch of commercial land along Murfreesboro Pike, and nobody involved is saying what it's for. The buyer, FJ PADS LLC, purchased the property from JD Ltd., a Tennessee general partnership, in a sale recorded on September 17. The location happens to sit along the anticipated route of the Music City Loop, the underground Tesla taxi system The Boring Company wants to build connecting downtown Nashville with Nashville International Airport.
According to WSMV, FJ PADS LLC is a Nevada limited liability company tied to The Boring Company, and it bought the Murfreesboro Pike property from JD Ltd. according to a special warranty deed. That same deed, the station reports, does not identify any plans for the site, and The Boring Company has not announced what it intends to do with the property. The lack of detail leaves the purchase as one more piece of a sprawling, and still largely opaque, tunnel project taking shape beneath the city.
A Route Still Taking Shape Underground
The Boring Company's own draft materials describe an airport-bound alignment that follows Murfreesboro Pike before continuing to Donelson Pike and terminating near the airport, according to boringcompany.com. The company says the Music City Loop has received approval from the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority and is currently under construction. That approval came by a unanimous 8-0 vote for the future Music City Loop station at Nashville International Airport, according to the same Boring Company materials.
Plans call for 40 Music City Loop stations across the system, per a report from WKRN. The publicly described system would use dedicated Tesla vehicles to transport passengers through underground tunnels between selected stations, according to loopnashville.com. The Boring Company maintains that the project is privately funded and will use no taxpayer dollars for either construction or operation.
Two Different Numbers on How Long the Tunnels Run
How big the underground network actually is depends on who's describing it. The Boring Company's own draft materials say the project will span almost 25 miles and take approximately 10 minutes to travel from the airport to Lower Broadway.
The price tag carries a similarly wide range. The Boring Company says the total project cost is expected to run a few hundred million dollars, an amount the company has said it will cover itself. The Music City Loop remains a planned project.
Machines Already Boring Beneath the City
Work on the tunnels is not theoretical. The Boring Company's project updates state that multiple tunnel-boring machines are actively tunneling in Nashville, and as of June 1, the company reported that its Prufrock-MB1 machine was already tunneling while Prufrock-MB2 was undergoing commissioning ahead of a planned June launch. Construction at the Music City Loop site was visible as early as March, per the Nashville Scene's reporting.
Despite that visible progress, the broader Music City Loop project has prompted questions about oversight and transparency, according to WSMV's reporting. The Murfreesboro Pike purchase fits that pattern: a company advancing a major infrastructure project through land deals and permit filings that offer only partial visibility into its ultimate footprint.
A Familiar Pattern From Las Vegas
Nashville isn't the first city where The Boring Company has quietly acquired property along a planned route. The Nevada Independent examined similar real-estate purchases the company made along the Las Vegas Loop route, a project The Boring Company describes as providing fast and convenient transportation to the Las Vegas community and its visitors. Mashable has reported that the Vegas Loop opened years ago, moving people around the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Whether the Murfreesboro Pike site becomes a station, a construction staging ground, or something else entirely remains unknown for now. Neither the deed nor The Boring Company has offered any indication of what's planned for the property, leaving Nashville residents to watch the tunneling machines' progress for clues about what's coming to their stretch of Murfreesboro Pike.
