In a video call addressing the World Governments Summit (WGS) 2025 in Dubai, Elon Musk and the UAE’s AI Minister announced that they are partnering on “Dubai Loop”, an underground high-speed transport system that seeks to connect the most densely populated in Dubai.
The announcement came on the final day of the summit during a session when Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla was speaking virtually with Omar Sultan Al Olama, Minister of State for Artificial Intelligence, Digital Economy, and Remote Work Applications and Vice Chair of the World Governments Summit 2025 (WGS).
Al Olama, Musk to join the first trip
“We’re going to announce the joint project of Dubai Loop, which is a loop project that is going to cover Dubai’s most densely populated areas for people to go from point to point,” said Al Olama.
Commenting on the Dubai Loop project, Musk said: “It will be like a wormhole. Like, you just wormhole from one part of the city and boom you’re out in another part of the city. I think once people try it out, they will think this is really cool.”
Al Olama also thanked Musk for the partnership, stating: “We look forward to the partnership and we’re going to join the first trip, the first pod.”
Musk presented his vision for the future of urban mobility, noting that Dubai Loop is part of a larger plan to innovate the transport sector, utilizing a network of advanced tunnels that will allow passengers to quickly travel across the city, avoiding traffic congestion. Musk explained that the project would allow people to travel as if they were moving through a “wormhole” within Dubai, referring to the ability to move instantly between two points without long distances or traffic delays.
He also emphasized the advantages of tunnel systems over alternatives like flying cars, citing the practicality, safety and efficiency of tunnels, which are protected from weather and noise, offering a smoother experience for passengers.
Musk highlights success of Las Vegas Loop
The two parties will partner to construct underground tunnels, similar to the Las Vegas Loop. The Las Vegas Loop runs underneath the convention center and took two years to build. The project includes five stations for 70 driverless vehicles.
Al Olama Musk didn’t share further details about the Dubai Loop project. The announcement came at the end of a discussion about Musk’s The Boring Company and its aim to build safe, fast and low-cost tunnels across cities to solve traffic congestion.
“What’s really useful about tunnels is alleviating traffic in congested areas. In Las Vegas, we’re busy connecting the whole city with all the big hotels, the convention center and the airport,” Musk said.
Musk explained that another solution to traffic is utilizing flying taxis or helicopters. “But the challenge with doing is that they tend to be very noisy and they generate a lot of wind force,” he said.
He added that “flying things tend to crash once in a while. If you have bad weather, let’s say there’s a blizzard or a sandstorm, nobody can fly. So transport shuts down. On the other hand, none of these problems exist with underground travel.”
Grok 3 to launch soon
He also talked about his AI chatbot Grok 3 which is in the final stages of development and will be released in about a week or two.
“Grok 3 has very powerful reasoning capabilities, so in the tests that we’ve done thus far, Grok 3 is outperforming anything that’s been released, that we’re aware of, so that’s a good sign,” he added.
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Government efficiency and long-term economic prosperity
During the discussion with Al Olama, Musk spoke about improving government efficiency, pointing out that the biggest challenge lies in reducing bureaucracy and enhancing the technology used within government institutions.
The billionaire highlighted the strong public support for such reforms in the United States, stressing that the main goal is “reducing the size of government” and “making the government much more accountable to the people”.
He noted that the expansion of laws and regulations has led to excessive restrictions, making nearly everything illegal, and argued that improving government efficiency involves not just reducing costs but also moving government employees to higher-value roles in the private sector, thus increasing overall productivity and improving citizens’ living standards.
He emphasized that this approach would lay the foundation for long-term economic prosperity, potentially reducing government deficits and significantly lowering inflation.
Musk suggested that the U.S. could save a trillion dollars by addressing bureaucracy and cutting back on federal agencies and regulations. He also highlighted the technological problems within government systems, noting that many rely on outdated technologies that don’t communicate with each other, leading to a significant waste of resources and time.
