“We’re all about exciting ideas that could make a difference,” Buttigieg says. Some allege that Musk proposed the hyperloop idea to dissuade California from investing in public transportation. cars. If that's true, Musk wouldn't be the only billionaire who did. According to a 2018 feature in The New York Times, conservative oil tycoons Charles G. and David H. Koch — the Koch brothers — tried to block public transit projects in Arkansas, Arizona, Michigan, Utah and Tennessee. Buttigieg, a Democrat who campaigned in 2020 for the U.S. Presidential election, emphasized the importance of focusing on modern, available transportation technologies like high-speed trains and electric vehicles. “We’re all about exciting ideas that could make a difference,” Buttigieg said. “But whether we’re talking about [electric vehicles] or high-speed rail, technologies that exist today — that could make a difference today — is where we have to begin.”