The 90-minute discussion that followed was remarkable—not for anything Davis specifically said, but simply for the fact that he spoke. one thing. The Boring Co., like Musk’s other companies, prides itself on avoiding the mainstream media. It ignored the journalists’ questions. It doesn’t even have a public relations department. Davis, a close and longtime ally “fixer” for Musk, has a reputation for avoiding speaking engagements, and rarely appears in public.

And yet, here he sits for a live conversation with an ex-TV reporter; Weeks later, Davis personally escorted a Las Vegas Review Journal reporter on a unique tour of the tunnels built by the Boring Co. under the city; he also rode a Tesla with a YouTuber in January, enthusiastically pointing out objects of interest as they travel through the completed section of the tunnel known as the Las Vegas Loop.

Davis’s sudden enthusiasm for the publicity circuit, after a decade of silence, is as baffling as it is unexpected.

“We’re not transparent enough, so we’re glad you’re here,” Davis SPOKE the Las Vegas reporter on the tunnel tour this month.

The timing may not be coincidental. as luck first reported, Boring Co just fined for disposal of waste water in Las Vegas manholes, and a INVESTIGATIONS to firefighters who were burned in its tunnels led a member of Congress to NEED The Governor of Nevada for more transparency. In Nashville, where the Boring Company plans to begin its next project, a Metro Tried by council member introducing the law opposition to the Loop project that received a lot of support from his peers, and a group that called themselves the “Big Dumb Hole Coalition” Occurred to oppose the project.

But for close Elon-verse observers, Boring Co’s shift in tactics raises a larger question about the mindset driving one of the world’s most powerful, and disruptive, collections of companies: Is the media blitz a temporary concession to damage control interests, or a more fundamental recognition of the limitations of Musk’s “go direct” strategy?

‘Can’t hide forever’

While less ambitious than Musk’s Neuralink brain chip startup or his SpaceX rocket company, the Boring Company—which hopes to eventually build “hyperloop” tunnels where autonomous vehicles zip around at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour—moved at an even faster pace. Almost a decade since its founding, Boring Co. just opened a 4-mile tunnel in Las Vegas, with human drivers driving tourists between the two resorts and the Convention Center at a speed of 35 miles per hour. Potential projects in California, Illinois, Texas, Florida, and Maryland have it all NOT APART. —either because they lost political momentum, or did not pass environmental assessments.

“I think they realized based on the failures of other projects that they needed to be more proactive in messaging,” said a former Boring Company employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. (The media embrace has its limits though – Davis and The Boring Co did not respond to Fortune’s interview requests for this story).

Finally, the Boring Co. projects. are public transportation projects, which are notoriously difficult because they require buy-in from all kinds of stakeholders, from landowners to elected politicians, to technical experts and emergency responders. Not to mention the people who will use the system: city residents. It requires outreach.

The Boring Company launched a two-month blog in Nashville, where it wants to build a 25-mile network of tunnels. Company representative Tyler Fairbanks recently addressed a meeting of the Nevada State Board of Regents to emphasize that safety is a priority for the company.

The main face of the media charm offensive, however, was Davis, the mid-40s Boring Co. president

Davis may rarely appear in public, but he’s very much within the web of Musk’s companies and charity projects. An early engineer at SpaceX, Musk recruited Davis to help him reduce X costs shortly after he bought it in 2022. And, last year, during Musk’s tenure in the White House, Musk teamed up with Davis to help manage his Department of Government Efficiency.

Davis has said little publicly about any of this. He gave an amazing interview to Fox News with many members of the DOGE team last year, even him can’t even be confirmed his role within the agency, saying only that he is “part of the DOGE team.” More than a decade ago, he spoke to Ashlee Vance for her biography, Elon Muskand his work at SpaceX (and his frozen yogurt restaurant, Mr. Yogato) was featured in a 2-minute Voices of America video in 2012.

He was described by his peers as a hands-on manager—watching various text threads of Boring Company employees and personally soliciting and talking to regulators and government officials about permitting delays—and having SAYS he can be cruel and sometimes insensitive, as luck previously reported.

As he made more public appearances, people came to understand his personality better. While he was a somewhat awkward presenter, Davis was energetic, comfortable, and enthusiastic during the tour with the Tesla podcaster. He lit up when talking about “Hyperloop Plaza” in Bastrop, Tex., the employee plaza that houses the Boring Company’s R&D facility, and where Davis says he has lunch every day when he’s there.

But while Davis’ efforts make him and the company feel more approachable, the company also needs to deliver results for such public efforts to work, said Len Sherman, an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. “They made claims, and now continue to make claims to be the new face of urban mobility,” Sherman said. “And there’s nothing absolutely positive that I haven’t seen that comes close to delivering proof that it’s something that people need to believe.”

Still, Sherman said he’s glad to see the Boring Company starting to interact with the public, and hopes Davis will agree to talk to people who ask him tough questions.

“Eventually, they can’t hide forever,” Sherman said.