Elon Musk’s companies, once warmly welcomed in Baltimore, are now being rebuffed—or sued

(SeaPRwire) –   A complimentary infrastructure proposal failed to persuade Maryland authorities to collaborate with Elon Musk.

On Tuesday, Musk’s tunneling firm, the Boring Company, initiated talks with municipal officials regarding a complimentary tunnel encircling the Baltimore Ravens’ football venue. Though the no-cost venture appeared to be a major win for the Ravens, who had proposed it to the Boring Co., the concept quickly fizzled. Within nine hours of the public announcement, Baltimore’s mayor and city council filed suit against xAI, an artificial intelligence firm also under Musk’s ownership, claiming its chatbot inundated users’ feeds with nonconsensual intimate images and child sexual abuse content.

On Wednesday, the Ravens announced that following discussions with “public partners,” they would abandon the tunnel proposal. Mayor Scott, a Democrat, publicly stated it was “not something that I would have approved.”

Combined, these two actions signify a remarkable change in a state that enthusiastically welcomed Elon Musk’s enterprises just ten years prior, and demonstrate the difficulties now confronting Musk’s array of companies as the notoriously impulsive and combative multibillionaire has transformed himself into a political flashpoint.

In emailed statements to , Baltimore City Solicitor Ebony Thompson stated the city sued xAI “to protect residents from deceptive and harmful practices involving generative AI tools,” while the Mayor’s Office expressed support for the Ravens’ “decision to withdraw their application.” The mayor’s press secretary refused additional comment.

The Raven Loop tunnel represented one of over 480 proposals the Boring Company received for constructing a one-mile circular tunnel measuring 12 feet in diameter. No further specifics about the Ravens’ particular proposal have been disclosed. M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens, currently accommodates roughly 70,000 spectators at full capacity and covers approximately 1.6 million square feet. Supporters typically drive and park near the venue, utilize the city’s light rail network—which includes a Stadium station—take the adjacent subway and walk approximately 20 minutes, or, particularly for major events, employ supplementary transit and shuttle services.

The proposed tunnel appears to have garnered minimal public interest among Ravens supporters or municipal residents prior to its cancellation, with limited discussion either favoring or opposing the initiative in local media coverage.

Maryland and Baltimore have traditionally embraced Musk’s enterprises through financial incentives and collaborative agreements. Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, was among the earliest political figures to publicly endorse a major Boring Company initiative in 2017, when the firm announced intentions to construct a high-speed tunnel for autonomous vehicles connecting Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The Maryland Department of Transportation backed the project, and Baltimore’s then-mayor, a Democrat, had declared the venture possessed “tremendous potential.”

This stance has altered since Musk contributed $300 million to President Trump’s campaign and assumed an active governmental position through DOGE. Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat, was among the first to criticize Musk’s activities at DOGE, describing the dismissal of thousands of federal employees in 2025 as “arbitrary” and “draconian” during a March 2025 working session, calling it cruel. Boring Company President Steve Davis, one of Musk’s longtime reliable troubleshooters, assisted Musk in overseeing the government agency.

This January, Maryland’s Democratic Attorney General, Anthony G. Brown, joined 33 other attorneys general in signing a letter demanding xAI implement “additional action” to stop Grok from producing nonconsensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material.

These demands came after widespread reports in late December and early January that Grok, xAI’s chatbot, had been creating images of women without clothing or in swimwear, violent sexual material, or explicit content featuring AI-generated figures that seemed to be minors.

In Baltimore’s municipal lawsuit, the mayor and city council allege Grok exposes residents to the danger that any image they upload—whether of themselves or their children—could be absorbed by Grok and converted into sexually exploitative deepfakes without their awareness or permission.

The suit further claims xAI has contributed to “normalizing a type of image-based sexual exploitation that becomes difficult to prevent, control, or rectify once released on a large scale.”

This political maneuver mirrors partisan hostility toward Musk in other states. In Nevada, only Democrats have demanded accountability following safety concerns and environmental incidents during Boring Company tunnel construction.

xAI and the Boring Company did not reply to requests for comment.

Baltimore’s initial tunnel venture

Baltimore was intended to serve as the premier showcase for what Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, the Boring Company, could achieve.

In 2017, the original plans for the Baltimore-Maryland Loop were ambitious—a 35.3-mile dual-tunnel network that would allow autonomous vehicles to travel between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. at velocities reaching 150 miles per hour, with intermediate stops. Critics, including engineers, deemed it impractical, and the initiative silently expired when the Boring Company halted the federal review procedure. The Boring Company subsequently shifted focus to Las Vegas, where it is presently excavating tunnels and managing a Tesla chauffeur service similar to Uber.

Earlier this year, as part of the Boring Co’s strategy to broaden into additional regions, the firm initiated a “tunnel vision challenge” seeking proposals for diverse tunnel projects—such as utility, water, or pedestrian tunnels—across the United States and pledged to construct a tunnel for one victor at no cost.

The process concluded this week with the announcement that the Boring Company had chosen Baltimore’s “Ravens Loop” project as one of three ventures it would advance—only for the Ravens to abruptly reconsider Musk’s generosity.

“After consultations with public partners, we have decided we will not proceed with the process at this time,” a Baltimore Ravens spokesperson conveyed to in a statement.

The Boring Company posted an “update” on its X account Wednesday: “Following preliminary discussions, this project regrettably will not advance as part of the competition,” the post stated, before questioning whether it should reopen the selection process to an alternative proposal.