$TSLA's Riverbend factory in Buffalo, NY

Short thread on $TSLA's Riverbend factory in Buffalo, NY, which @elonmusk fatuously calls "Gigafactory 2"; a name which many reporters even more fatuously parrot. I'll end with an apology to @AustinCarr & praise some fine work he's done. But he missed some important stuff. s

First, some context. Tesla pocketed almost a billion dollars in New York taxpayer money. It promised 4,900 jobs arising from the Buffalo factory. Probably less than one-tenth of those jobs exist today.

Meanwhile Tesla has opened a manufacturing plant in Shanghai, financed in large part by state-controlled banks. Tesla has promised to do much more R&D in China. And every month one reads of new instances of Musk praising his CCP overlords for their vision & leadership.

Tesla also has started building another factory in Berlin, and now promises yet another in Texas. As for Buffalo, it has been hung out to dry. Broken employment promises. Endless lies about solar panels. While New York politicians who vouched for this deal sit on their hands.

All those are explosive ingredients for some investigative reporting. Some of the story has been reported, but much of it has been missed. Okay, enough context. To the details. Riverbend is a cesspool of political & bureaucratic corruption (as felony convictions have proven). New York State agreed to spend $750 million on a factory & equipment for what was then a firm managed by @elonmusk 's cousins, & is now (post $SCTY bailout) a $tsla subsidiary.

Replying to New York State actually spent $959 million. No one has ever explained the $209 million overpayment. And, so far as I can tell, no one has ever pressed either NY elected officials or the nodding numbskulls @EmpireStateDevd , which helps dole out the subsidies, for an explanation.

Riverbend was initially supposed to produce panels incorporating technology from a SolarCity subsidiary called Silevo. The tiniest bit of due diligence by NY State would have revealed that technology was a complete bust.

. AustinCarr has done fine long-read reporting on the failure of that technology, the shifting of gears to a new story involving Panasonic, and the further mutation of Tesla's story to claim Riverbend would be producing the solar roof.

Here's a link from to some of those stories. I missed most of these at the time, despite my @business subscription. I've now "followed" AustinCarr and hope never to miss another. It is fine reporting, w/ help often from DanaHull & others at Bloomberg.

I feel like Dana and I have to share these links every other month 😑: https://t.co/v8a3uCnJ3f

— Austin Carr (@AustinCarr) July 23, 2020

. @AustinCarr allows as how I have "an obtuse grasp of journalism." Okay, Austin. I'll give that some thought. And why don't you think about some parts of this story that you have missed. I'll outline a few.

First, some context. Tesla promised not merely "1,460 manufacturing jobs at the plant," as Carr has written. It promised (and I quote from the original Agreement) "a minimum of 1,460 high tech jobs for the Manufacturing Operation..."

That "high tech" part seems important, doesn't it, Mr. Carr? It's the difference between low-paid menial jobs, such as Tesla has furnished, and significantly higher paying and meaningful employment.

Tesla also promised 1,440 additional support jobs in NY State, as well as no fewer than 2,000 other jobs, to be created within 5 years of factory opening, and retained for 5 years, "to support downstream solar panel sales and installation activities within New York State." Delay after delay after delay is documented in the first 7 amendments to the deal. Carr has done in-depth and superb reporting on what caused the delays. Then came the highly suspicious 8th & 9th amendments, which were not published until long after they were entered into.

Those 1,460 "high tech" jobs in Buffalo? Scratch the "high tech" part. Any old jobs, including low-paying jobs, will do just fine. So far as I can tell, there's nothing in Bloomberg's reporting about this.

The 900 of such jobs to be created over the first two years after the factory's completion? That number shrunk to 500 (Carr did report on that.)

The 1,440 "support jobs to be located in New York State" within five years of factory opening? They were folded into another section merely requiring 5,000 overall jobs (including the factory jobs, with the target date being the 10th anniversary date of the factory opening).

Guess what: as of the 10th anniversary date of the opening, New York State would have absolutely no useful remedies for Tesla default. So far as I can tell, Carr and his colleagues have completely missed this part of the story.

What about the 2,000 jobs for solar panel sales and installation employees? The "solar panel sales and installation employees" language disappeared, & the 2,000 job requirement disappeared into the overall 5,000 employee number.

These amendments, made several months before the SolarCity acquisition was announced, didn't simply happen without lots of machinations behind the scenes. Obviously, Tesla knew SolarCity was failing. NY State surrendered crucial rights, and got nothing in return.

And yet, Mr. Carr, I think you completely missed all that. It's called corruption. It is either New York State politicians hoping to paper over their failures by making the obligations disappear, or something even worse.

Whether politicians scrambling for cover, or outright corruption, these deal changes would seem highly newsworthy, no Mr. Carr?

Indeed, they would seem highly newsworthy notwithstanding my "obtuse grasp on journalism," no? (By the way, Mr. Carr, I was the first person ever to report on these changes, in a four-part series back in June of 2017.) Tesla: SolarCity's Buffalo Deal Has Lots Of Crooked Bends In The River (NASDAQ:TSLA) Three years ago, New York State's leaders announced Silevo’s Triex technology was “of critical importance to the United States economic competitiveness and energy independence.. seekingalpha.com

So, there you have it. Tesla genuflecting to China, building in Berlin, giving the "hook'em horns" salute to Texas, but giving Buffalo and New York State taxpayers the finger, while neither NY politicians nor Tesla executives are ever called to account.