President Donald Trump said Friday he would consider a far-fetched proposal for Elon Musk’s Boring Company to build an undersea rail tunnel connecting Alaska and Russia — an idea pitched by an envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“I just heard about it — a tunnel from Russia to Alaska. I just heard about that one. That’s an interesting one. We’ll have to think about that,” Trump told reporters as he met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House.
Apparently out of the blue, a Russian investment envoy named Kirill Dmitriev suggested on X on Thursday that Elon Musk’s tunneling company build a link between the rival countries, with partial funding from Russia’s sovereign wealth fund.
The envoy wove in some flattery, saying the “70-mile link symbolizing unity” could be named the “Putin-Trump Tunnel.”
“Let’s build a future together!” Dmitriev wrote, tagging Musk’s personal account and his Boring Company.
Zelensky, whose country has been fighting a Russian invasion for over three years, was not amused.
When Trump asked the Ukrainian president what he thought of the idea, he replied, “I’m not happy with this.”
Trump laughed and said, “I don’t think you’re going to like it! I don’t think he likes it!”
Musk’s lawyer and The Boring Company did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
“Traditional costs” would place the cost of building the tunnel at over $65 billion, Dmitriev conjectured, but The Boring Company’s “tech could reduce it to” less than $8 billion.
The tunnel talk followed a Thursday call between Trump and Putin about the war in Ukraine.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other White House officials will meet with Russian counterparts next week before Trump and Putin meet in Budapest, Hungary, at a later date, the US president said.
An undersea tunnel near the Bering Strait would be a huge undertaking, requiring workers to operate in below-freezing temperatures in a region with frequent, intense earthquakes.
Musk’s company has typically completed projects in hot, dry climates, like a tunnel in Las Vegas.
The Boring Company was recently fined by environmental regulators in Nevada for an “extraordinary number of violations” as it worked on the tunnel, according to ProPublica.
The Boring Company is also working on a 10-mile, high-speed transit system in Nashville, Tenn. The project – known as the Music City Loop – would connect the downtown area to the city’s airport.
Some locals have protested the project, arguing that it will benefit developers more than anyone else and lacks transparency.
Several of Musk’s companies already have ties to Russia. Tesla’s supply chain has links to Russia, and SpaceX has launched Russian cosmonauts to the International Space Station, alongside NASA astronauts.
Musk has reportedly spoken with Putin several times in the past, including secret talks in 2022, according to the Wall Street Journal. Putin allegedly pressured Musk to withhold Starlink, his satellite internet service, from Taiwan as a favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping, according the Journal reported.
