Kremlin envoy proposes ‘Putin-Trump tunnel’ to link Russia and U.S.
Reuters
President Donald Trump said Friday that a Russian proposal for Elon Musk and his tunneling business, the Boring Company, to build an undersea rail tunnel through the Bering Strait was “interesting” and he’d have to think about it.
“That’s an interesting one,” Trump said when asked about the suggested tunnel from Russia to Alaska. “We’ll have to think about that. I hadn’t heard that.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was “not happy” with the idea following Trump’s response.
Kirill Dmitriev, an investment envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested in posts on Musk’s social media platform X that the project would be partly funded by Moscow.
Dmitriev said it would be “a 70-mile link symbolizing unity.”
A tunnel like this would traditionally cost an estimated $65 billion to build, said Dmitriev, who is head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, adding that The Boring Company and its technology could potentially reduce those costs to $8 billion and complete the project within eight years.
“Let’s build a future together!” he wrote.
Read more CNBC tech news
Dmitriev’s suggestion followed a call between Putin and Trump on Thursday, during which plans were made to discuss possible resolutions to the Ukraine War.
Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other high-level advisors will meet next week with a Russian delegation before Trump and Putin meet in Budapest, Hungary, at a future date.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment about the proposal.
Construction of an undersea tunnel in the Bering Strait would require Musk’s Boring Company to work through below-freezing temperatures in a region without existing infrastructure and with deep and frequent earthquakes.
The Boring Company has no track record of working through such conditions.
Its previous tunneling efforts were completed in hot, dry locations with plenty of infrastructure and services nearby.
The Boring Company was recently fined and cited by environmental regulators in the state of Nevada for an “extraordinary number of violations,” ProPublica reported, citing public records. Those violations included: digging without approval, releasing untreated water onto city streets and spilling waste from trucks.
The Boring Company is now working on a 10-mile tunnel project from downtown Nashville, Tennessee, to its airport, dubbed the Music City Loop. Residents protested, in part, due to the lack of planning before The Boring Company project was authorized in the flood-prone city.
U.S. President Donald Trump (R) walks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as they arrives at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on August 15, 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
Musk’s automaker, Tesla, has supply chain ties to Russia, and the CEO has spoken with Putin about other matters in the past few years.
The EV maker has purchased millions of euros worth of aluminum from Rusal,