California's $126 Billion Train to Nowhere, Explained

Dear California, you’re being scammed. Last Sunday, 60 Minutes featured California’s high-speed rail project. During the segment, Anthony Williams, a board member of the California High-Speed Rail Authority and former legislative affairs secretary for Governor Gavin Newsom, was asked if the financing was ready when construction started. He replied, “It wasn’t. Let’s be real.” Ouch.

In 2008, voters were promised an 800-mile bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco, with trips under three hours. The project was expected to cost $33 billion and be finished by 2020. Voters passed Prop 1A, which provided nearly $10 billion in state bonds. The rest of the money was supposed to come from federal grants and private investors. But that funding never materialized.

As of 2026, the estimated cost has risen to $126 billion, almost four times the original amount. No high-speed tracks have been built, and no trains are running. Instead of connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, the project now focuses on a smaller section in the Central Valley, between Bakersfield and Merced. The earliest this limited route might open is 2033, which is over ten years later than the original statewide deadline.

The state has spent over $11 billion. About 80 miles of graded land and concrete structures have been built, but these are just guideways, not a working railroad. The California High-Speed Rail Authority started construction without settling important details like the exact track routes or which land to buy. This led to environmental reviews, lawsuits, and disputes over land rights. By November 2025, there were 597 change orders, adding up to more than $2.3 billion, just for plan revisions.

Rep. Vince Fong, a Republican from Bakersfield on the House Transportation Committee, told 60 Minutes the project was a “bait and switch.” Toks Omishakin, California’s Secretary of Transportation, did not argue with this description. He admitted mistakes had been made and called much of the criticism “very fair.” He also said that neither voters nor officials fully understood what was needed to deliver the project.

In July 2025, the Trump administration canceled $4 billion in unused federal grants for the project, making the financial situation even worse. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called it the “worst cost overrun I’ve ever seen” and said the project had “wasted billions in taxpayer dollars yet delivered nothing.” Now, California has a $90 billion funding gap with no clear solution. The only reliable funding is about $1 billion a year from cap-and-trade auctions, which will end in 2045.

Lou Thompson, who helped start Amtrak and led the state’s high-speed rail peer review group for more than ten years, wrote to lawmakers in March that the project has “reached a dead end.” When 60 Minutes asked if he thought it would be finished in his lifetime, Thompson said he was “dubious.” He explained that big projects like this often fail because of unclear goals, bad cost and schedule estimates, and too much optimism about how hard they will be.

Governor Newsom declined multiple requests from 60 Minutes for an interview.

The $126 billion price tag is more than Amtrak has ever received, yet it is still not enough to finish the project. California is now focused on a smaller part of the original plan, with no current federal funding or private investment, and board members admitting there were financial problems from the start. The big question now is whether the state will keep investing in the Central Valley section.

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Nick sat down with Edward "Big Balls" Coristine for a two-hour conversation about fraud, waste, and Coristine’s experiences inside DOGE. If you haven’t heard of him, Coristine is a 20-year-old self-taught programmer who became well known after joining Elon Musk’s team to review federal spending. He also helped Nick analyze HHS data sets, which led to Nick’s investigations into fraud in California.

You can watch the full interview here.

Coristine’s main point is that government fraud isn’t complicated. It just goes unchecked. For example, during COVID, the Small Business Administration issued loans without verifying that the Social Security numbers on applications belonged to real, living people. Some numbers were for people who had died years ago. Agencies don’t share information, so Social Security might know someone has died, but SNAP or Medicaid could keep sending payments to that person’s account. "A lot of this just comes down to just being disciplined about the basic checks that have to happen when the government is giving out money," Coristine said.

The bigger issue, Coristine says, is incentives. In private companies, overspending eventually leads to a correction. In government, there’s no similar pressure. "The worst thing that you can ever do is upset someone," Coristine explained. "Our default stance is okay, let's just give them the money." He said this attitude is why billions can disappear without anyone noticing.

The conversation also covered some of DOGE's most absurd findings, including $33 million for transgender monkey research, $20 million for a Sesame Street-style TV show in Iraq, and $60 million for housing illegal migrants in New York City luxury hotels using FEMA disaster relief funds. Coristine said findings like these were a daily occurrence. "It became kind of normal. Someone would say we spent some crazy number on some crazy topic, and it's like, oh, I guess it's kind of par for the course now."

Nick asked Coristine what he learned from working with Elon Musk. Coristine disagreed with the idea that Musk just hires talented people and lets them work. Instead, he described Musk as very involved and knowledgeable about every detail. "Whatever topic you bring up to him, he understands it." The most important lesson, Coristine said, was what he calls "truth maxing," an obsessive, ground-level pursuit of the actual facts before making any decisions.

The full interview between Nick and Big Balls is worth a watch. We'll be sitting down with more people from all across the political landscape, so make sure to forward this email and share Anti Fraud Club.

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