Nick Shirley: Exposing Government Fraud, Suing California & Taking on the Media

Chamath Palihapitiya (0:05)

Hey, Besties, if you were given $15 billion, what could you build? The next PayPal, perhaps the next SpaceX, the next Google, or would you build a high-speed rail?

Nick Shirley (0:20)

This is the California High Speed Rail that goes to absolutely nowhere. No, I mean absolutely nowhere. I mean literally nowhere.

This is all California has to show for $15 billion and 18 years of work. In 2008, they said they were going to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. To this date, they have connected literally nothing. And now to finish this project, they're estimating it's going to cost $100 to $200 billion. And funny enough, in 2008, China also created their own high-speed rail and they've connected the whole entire country of China. Over 30,000 miles here in California, they haven't connected a single town. We're going to be breaking down this entire thing from start to finish to show you guys what is actually happening with California High Speed Rail. Let's get into it. Now let's go talk to somebody who knows a lot about the California High Speed Rail. What's the truth about the High Speed Rail here inside of California?

SPEAKER_3 (1:14)

Well, we call it California High Speed Rail, but all we have is concrete and rebar and about $15 billion spent. It currently is right now the most expensive infrastructure project happening in the world today. The original estimates for California High Speed Rail was $33 billion.

It then jumped to $126 billion, and now the newest estimate is $236 billion.

This project is on track for one thing, and that is to be the third most expensive infrastructure project in the history of the world. Number one is the Interstate Project of the 1950s. Number two is the International Space Station, and now it is California High Speed Rail. The difference between those three projects is you can drive on I-5, or you can go on I-80 and drive across the entire country. You can go to outer space. We will never ride California High Speed Rail.

Nick Shirley (2:10)

So it goes from there all the way to right here. This is where it ends.

SPEAKER_3 (2:16)

It is probably the most expensive piece of concrete known to man, and often referred to here in the Central Valley as a modern-day Stonehenge.

Nick Shirley (2:24)

How come they continue to say that they're going to continue to build the High Speed Rail when there's actually proof that it is quite literally impossible?

SPEAKER_3 (2:31)

Governor Newsom, in a video himself from 2016, I believe, actually admitted to all of us in a private video that he doesn't believe that this project will ever be done in our lifetime. He said that.

Gavin Newsom (2:46)

Okay, the facts seem overwhelming that this project is not going to materialize in our lifetime.

Nick Shirley (2:51)

And now this is the result of over $15 billion.

Who's taking the $15 billion? And where's the $15 billion gone if this is all that they have to show for?

SPEAKER_3 (3:01)

One third of the entire cost of California High Speed Rail has gone to this part called Change Order Delays.

Because they didn't know where the infrastructure was and or how to build this actual train, contractors that got awarded a parcel to work on are owed $170,000 a day, $5 million a month for every single day. They can't work. We just settled here in California very recently in February.

The largest settlement in a delay settlement for over half a billion dollars. Because a contractor couldn't work on the actual project, they were owed a half a billion dollars.

Nick Shirley (3:43)

What are some of the biggest examples of waste, fraud, and just complete incompetence by the government when you see this high speed rail?

SPEAKER_3 (3:51)

California was supposed to buy the actual trains and the trains that would be considered high speed rail. The state didn't buy the trains, in my opinion, because they know that there will never be a train on these tracks.

Nick Shirley (4:07)

So California has not even bought the trains yet?

SPEAKER_3 (4:10)

No. If we would just buy one-way tickets at current ridership between San Francisco and LA, which is the goal of California High Speed Rail, we could subsidize free tickets one way for the next 150 years.

Now, with the new estimate that California High Speed Rail is going to be $236 billion, we could subsidize one-way tickets between San Francisco and LA for the next 300 years. So to me, it would make more sense for all of us to just buy the flights from San Francisco to LA than it would be to build a train or whatever this is and spend more money doing that. I mean, it doesn't make any sense mathematically.