Boring Company Hits $23B Valuation in $3B UAE-Led Round — SkimNews
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- The Boring Company closed a $3 billion Series D funding round on September 9, led by the UAE, valuing Elon Musk's tunneling venture at $23 billion — roughly four times its 2022 valuation of about $5.7 billion.
- The UAE is both the lead investor and the largest customer, committing to more than 150 kilometers of tunnel across the country on top of the 6.4 km Dubai Loop pilot, though no passenger tunnel is open in the UAE yet and precast production is only underway.
- Other investors in the round include Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Temasek, Valor Equity Partners, Vy Capital, Human Capital, Shamal Holding, and Baron Capital, with funds earmarked for hiring, scaling Loop projects, and Prufrock tunnel-boring machine R&D.
- Vegas Loop has carried more than four million passengers and Clark County approved 19 more stations toward a 123-station network, but the company has yet to prove in simulation that it relieves traffic better than other mass transit.
- Nashville's Music City Loop received its state permit on February 25, 2026, with tunneling starting the same day, and by August two Prufrock machines were mining with a third in final assembly in Texas — Boring's first hard-rock work.
- Of roughly a dozen city projects announced since 2017, Vegas is the only one carrying passengers; Chicago O'Hare, the DC-to-Baltimore Loop, Ontario CA's airport connector, San Antonio, Fort Lauderdale, and both Los Angeles projects collapsed via financing gaps, environmental reviews, community opposition, or the company simply stopping communication.
Why it matters: The $23 billion valuation is priced almost entirely against tunnels that don't exist: Boring has carried paying passengers in exactly one city out of roughly a dozen announced. By making the UAE both lead investor and customer for 150+ km of unbuilt work, the round sidesteps the permitting and environmental-review gauntlet that killed every other U.S. project on the company's record.
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