Maryland officials have expressed reluctance to engage with Elon Musk, even when presented with a free infrastructure project.
On Tuesday, the Boring Company, Musk’s tunneling business, entered discussions with city officials regarding the construction of a complimentary tunnel surrounding the Baltimore Ravens’ football stadium. While this initiative appeared beneficial for the Ravens, who had proposed the project, the discussion quickly lost momentum. Just nine hours after the announcement, Baltimore’s mayor and city council initiated a lawsuit against xAI, another company owned by Musk, alleging severe issues concerning the chatbot's distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery and child sexual abuse material.
By Wednesday, the Ravens indicated they would withdraw from the tunnel proposal following discussions with “public partners.” Mayor Scott, representing the Democratic party, expressed his disapproval, stating, “It is not something that I would have approved.”
These developments signify a remarkable turnaround for a state that once warmly embraced Musk’s ventures about ten years ago. It also highlights the complex challenges facing Musk's array of companies as he has transformed into a polarizing political figure due to his impulsive nature.
In communications sent to Fortune, Baltimore’s City Solicitor, Ebony Thompson, remarked that the city had sued xAI “to protect residents from deceptive and harmful practices involving generative AI tools.” Furthermore, the Mayor’s Office expressed support for the Ravens’ decision to withdraw their proposal, while the Mayor’s press secretary opted not to provide additional comments.
The proposed Raven Loop tunnel was among over 480 proposals the Boring Company has received for a mile-long loop tunnel, with a diameter of 12 feet. However, no specific details regarding the Ravens’ pitch have been disclosed. The M&T Bank Stadium, home to the Baltimore Ravens, accommodates around 70,000 fans and covers roughly 1.6 million square feet. Typically, attendees reach the stadium by driving and parking nearby, utilizing the city’s light rail system—which includes a Stadium stop—taking the adjacent subway and walking approximately 20 minutes, or leveraging additional transit and shuttle options for larger events.
The proposed tunnel did not seem to garner significant public interest from Ravens fans or city residents prior to its withdrawal, with minimal coverage or discussion within local media outlets.
Historically, Maryland and Baltimore have offered Musk's companies incentives and cooperative initiatives. For instance, former Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, was among the first public figures to endorse a major Boring Company undertaking in 2017, when plans were announced for a high-speed tunnel facilitating autonomous vehicle travel between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. The Maryland Department of Transportation had backed the project, with Baltimore’s then-Mayor, a Democrat, identifying it as having “tremendous potential.”
This receptive attitude appears to have shifted since Musk made a $300 million donation to Donald Trump's campaign and became actively involved in governmental matters through DOGE. The current Governor, Wes Moore, a Democrat, has publicly criticized Musk’s actions at DOGE, referring to the mass termination of thousands of federal employees as “arbitrary” and “draconian.”
In January of this year, Maryland's Democratic Attorney General, Anthony G. Brown, joined 33 other attorneys general in a letter urging xAI to undertake “additional action” to prevent the chatbot, Grok, from generating non-consensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material.
These concerns arose following extensive reports in late December and early January detailing Grok's generation of explicit images involving AI-created individuals that appeared to be underage.
The lawsuit initiated by the City of Baltimore asserts that Grok endangers residents by posing the risk that any uploaded photographs—of individuals or their children—could be processed by Grok, transformed into sexually degrading deepfakes, all without knowledge or consent.
Additionally, the lawsuit claims that xAI has contributed to the “normalization of a form of image-based sexual abuse that is difficult to prevent, contain, or remedy once unleashed at scale.”
This political action mirrors similar partisan tensions concerning Musk in other states. In Nevada, Democrats have been at the forefront of demanding accountability amid safety concerns and environmental incidents related to Boring Company tunnels.
Requests for comments from xAI and the Boring Company have not been met with responses.
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