Thursday, Nov. 13, 2025 | 2:25 p.m.
After two Clark County firefighters suffered devastating chemical burns inside Elon Musk’s Las Vegas tunnels, Nevada workplace-safety officials fined his Boring Company more than $400,000.
But within hours of those citations, Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office stepped in — and the penalties vanished, along with public records of the meeting that made them disappear, according to a report in Fortune this week.
The firefighters, who were participating in a training exercise in December 2024, were permanently scarred after exposure to toxic chemicals in muck fluid that pools at the tunnel base.
The events have raised serious questions about political interference in workplace safety enforcement, Fortune documented.
Within hours of receiving the citations, Boring Company President Steve Davis contacted Gov. Joe Lombardo’s office. The following day, high-ranking state officials — including the governor’s infrastructure coordinator and other political appointees — met with Boring executives.
The citations were rescinded before the company even presented its formal case.
The aftermath has alarmed OSHA staff and outside experts. Records of the governor’s office meeting were deleted from public documents without explanation, case file documents went missing, and paperwork explaining the citation withdrawal was omitted.
While a Nevada OSHA spokesperson dismissed these as “innocuous mistakes” and claimed the citations were issued in error, four lawyers and former Nevada regulators strongly disagreed.
Former OSHA chief Jess Lankford emphasized that the agency is meant to maintain political independence, calling the intervention “absolutely not appropriate.”
The incident has created a chilling effect within Nevada OSHA, where current employees now report fearing discipline for properly investigating the Boring Company.
Two staffers who worked on the case were either demoted or written up. Meanwhile, safety problems continue: five current and former employees report that chemical burns occur “daily,” and in September, a worker suffered a crushed pelvis.
Despite numerous incidents, the Boring Company has never paid a penalty to Nevada OSHA, Fortune said. The company is contesting eight citations from 2023 and recently faced nearly $500,000 in fines from environmental regulators for illegally dumping wastewater into Las Vegas manholes.
“As Nevadans suffered from chemical burns, broken bones, and electric shocks, Joe Lombardo’s office made backroom deals instead of holding Elon Musk and his company responsible for these egregious safety violations — and then tried to cover up the evidence. Lombardo is nothing but a con artist who is selling out Nevadans’ safety to serve powerful billionaires like Musk and protect his own political interests,” said Kate Sosland, a spokesperson for the Nevada State Democratic Party.
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