UAE-led $3 billion round values Musk's Boring Company at $23 billion

The Boring Company said Wednesday it had raised $3 billion in a Series D led by "the United Arab Emirates and affiliated investment entities," a round that values Elon Musk's tunneling firm at $23 billion and is meant to accelerate more than 150 kilometers of underground infrastructure across the UAE.

That is a fourfold step-up from the $5.675 billion mark the company attached to its April 2022 Series C. The delivery record behind it is not a national network. It is Las Vegas in service, Nashville boring, and Dubai contracted: one convention-center shuttle, one line being dug, one pilot that has not begun tunneling. There is no listed Boring Company share.

The round, and who is writing the check

The company named Human Capital, Vy Capital, Valor Equity Partners, Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Temasek, Shamal Holding, and Baron Capital as co-investors, "in addition to other valued existing and new investors." Sequoia, Vy Capital, and Valor Equity Partners were already in the book: they helped lead or fill the April 20, 2022 Series C, when The Boring Company raised $675 million.

The statement does not disclose a share price, how much of the $3 billion is primary capital versus a secondary sale, liquidation preference, or how the check is split between the UAE lead and the named firms. The lead is a country and its affiliates, not a single named sovereign fund. The only signed customer on the UAE map is Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority, an emirate-level body that awarded the Dubai Loop in February. Wednesday's statement does not name those affiliates, bind them to the RTA, or say how the additional kilometers will be awarded and priced.

Proceeds, the company said, will go to hiring in engineering, operations, and production; to scaling Loop projects in Las Vegas, Nashville, and Dubai; and to research and development on Prufrock, its tunneling machine, and future products. Shamal Holding, a Dubai-based investor in the round, said the Loop system had "safely carried more than four million passengers in Las Vegas since 2021" and that "the technology has moved beyond proof of concept." It did not say how much it invested.

What 150 kilometers actually commits

The kilometer target is the center of the announcement, and it is not a construction map. The company said the new capital would "accelerate the partnership to deploy mass quantities of underground infrastructure across the UAE, including" more than 150 kilometers of tunnel, in addition to the previously awarded Dubai Loop. The announcement did not publish a route list, a station count, a capex total, or named construction contracts for those kilometers.

What is under contract is smaller and older. On February 3, 2026, The Boring Company and Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority signed a definitive partnership for the Dubai Loop at the World Governments Summit. The pilot is a 6.4-kilometer, four-station line between Dubai International Financial Centre and Dubai Mall. The company estimated that first phase at about $154 million and about a year after design and preparations; it put the full alignment, up to 22.5 kilometers and 19 stations into Business Bay, at about $545 million and about three years. Scaled with that full-route estimate, 150 kilometers would cost about $3.6 billion, against the $3 billion just raised. Those kilometers still have to be contracted.

The company's projects page still lists Dubai Loop as "Under Contract," with construction on the pilot due to start in late 2026. Parsons Corporation, the engineering and infrastructure firm, is the one listed contractor on that work. On May 4, Parsons said The Boring Company had awarded it a nine-month professional-services contract as delegated consultant on the Dubai Loop pilot: independent design verification, stakeholder management, permitting support, and multidisciplinary design reviews. Parsons did not disclose a value.

Las Vegas runs. The old U.S. map is thinner.

The original Las Vegas Convention Center Loop opened in April 2021 as 1.7 miles and three stations, built for about $47 million on a firm-fixed-price contract. The company says it cut a 45-minute cross-campus walk to about two minutes and showed peak throughput above 4,500 passengers an hour. In 2024 the convention-center system expanded to 2.1 miles and five stations. The Wednesday statement said Vegas Loop had carried more than four million passengers, that new connectors had opened at Westgate, Encore, Fontainebleau, and Sahara, and that further approvals had enlarged the entitled network.

Nashville is the second U.S. city actually in the ground. On February 25, 2026, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee said the Tennessee Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration had approved a lease and grading permit for the Music City Loop, a privately funded line meant to connect downtown Nashville with Nashville International Airport. The Boring Company said it would start construction immediately; local television reported digging underway the next day. Officials then said the first segment was expected to be operational by the end of 2026. Wednesday's round lists Nashville among the projects the new capital will scale. That February timetable has not been reconfirmed in the new statement.

Not every city on the old pitch deck became a tunnel. In 2018 the company dropped a planned Westside Los Angeles test tunnel in a settlement with community groups. Chicago selected it that same year for a downtown-to-O'Hare concept that did not become an operating system.

Permits now price the business

A $23 billion mark on a tunneling company is a bet that planning departments and inspectors will keep saying yes. In Dubai, the company said it would need roughly 48 permits and no-objection certificates from about 10 entities, with a goal of beginning tunneling in the second half of 2026. In May, Clark County tightened Vegas Loop safety rules, including a surface exit every 2,500 feet, after the fire chief said ordinary transportation standards did not fit single-lane electric-vehicle tunnels. Nevada OSHA has inspected the Las Vegas work repeatedly: some visits found no violations, one produced citations the company contested, and federal OSHA later backed the state's withdrawal of a separate set of willful citations tied to a 2024 drill in which two firefighters were burned.

The facts that will test the mark are which of those permits land, which of the 150 kilometers are actually awarded, and whether Nashville and Dubai open on the calendars already on the page.