All-In Podcast: Newsom Privately Doubted Bullet Train Would Ever Be Finished

By Walt Ridley

On the September 18 episode of All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg — titled "Nick Shirley: Exposing Government Fraud, Suing California & Taking on the Media" — commentator David Friedberg said Governor Gavin Newsom privately conceded, in a video Friedberg dated to 2016, that he does not believe California's high-speed rail line will ever be completed.

Friedberg made the claim while walking through the project's finances. He said the state has spent roughly $15 billion so far and has only concrete and rebar to show for it. Original estimates put the full project at $33 billion, Friedberg said; that figure rose to $126 billion and now stands at $236 billion, which he said makes it the most expensive infrastructure project underway anywhere in the world.

Co-host David Sacks pressed Friedberg on where the money has gone. Friedberg said about one-third of total costs have been eaten up by "change order delays" tied to contractor disputes over where infrastructure sits and how to build the line. He said contractors are owed $170,000 a day, or roughly $5 million a month, for every day they cannot work, and that the state settled one such dispute in February for more than half a billion dollars.

Friedberg also said California has not yet purchased the trains themselves — equipment that would be required for the system to function as advertised. He offered his own view on why: state officials, he said, know there will never be a train running on the tracks that have been built.

The exchange comes as the rail authority's cost estimates have continued to climb well past initial voter-approved projections, a point Friedberg and Sacks returned to repeatedly on the show.

Heard on All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg — Nick Shirley: Exposing Government Fraud, Suing California & Taking on the Media (2026-09-18).