Musk’s DOGE targets Cali bullet train

California’s publicly funded high-speed rail project, a favorite target of Congressional Republicans, faces a fresh threat when President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.

Trump advisors Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who will head up the newly created advisory Department of Government Efficiency, have vowed to cut federal funds for the bullet train, which has become one of the country’s most politicized infrastructure projects after years of delays and cost overruns.

“This is a wasteful vanity project, burning billions in taxpayer cash, with little prospect for completion in the next decade,” Ramaswamy said in a Nov. 27 post on X. “Time to end the waste.”

DOGE followed Ramaswamy’s comment with a Nov. 30 post that listed the project’s problems. The original project cost in 2008 of $33 billion has grown to between $88.5 and $127.9 billion, the post said. “Estimated completion date was 2020; as of 2024, zero passengers have been transported and the majority has not even been fully designed.”

The post also noted that California has received $6.8 billion in federal funds, and hopes to win a total of $8 billion over the next five years.

Musk and Ramaswamy, who met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill Thursday, have vowed to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget by July 4, 2026. As a presidential advisory council, DOGE can only make recommendations to Congress, which would then need to approve the cuts.

Trump during his first administration terminated a $929 million dollar federal grant allocated to the bullet train. The Biden administration, which has made high-speed rail a priority, restored the funds and last December awarded it $3.1 billion, the largest federal support to date.

In addition to federal funds, the California High Speed Rail Authority relies on state bond proceeds from a 2008 voter-approved $9.9 billion bond issue for what was then envisioned as a $33 billion, 800-mile high-speed rail system between San Francisco and San Diego. Revenue from the state’s cap-and-trade program also funds the project.

The full route’s shortfall is as high as $99 billion, and an initial Merced to Bakersfield segment, with an estimated $35 billion price tag, faces a potential $7 billion gap, according to the watchdog California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group.

In July, the authority approved final environmental clearance needed for the full 463-mile route.

Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, top Republican on the Senate Commerce Committee, in May launched an investigation into the use of federal funds for what they called “one of the most troubled megaprojects in the nation.”

California state Sen. Scott Wiener, chair of the Budget Committee, said in a Monday post on X that Musk wants to kill the project in order to push his “scam hyperloop” that “will solve everything.” Wiener added the state will “have to fight very hard to protect transit funding. And in California, we’re going to need self help for our transit systems.”