New York spent nearly $1 billion building Elon Musk a massive solar panel factory that has failed to meet initial expectations, including production outputs and boosting economic development according to The Wall Street Journal.
New York state began construction on a 1.2 million square foot industrial facility in 2015 that it now leases to Tesla for $1 a year, according to the WSJ. Though Musk predicted the facility would produce enough panels a week to aid in 1,000 roof installations, it has failed to meet that benchmark, with it only completing 21 installations in the same time frame, according to energy analysts at Wood Mackenzie.
The state government initially invested $240 million in the factory by purchasing solar panel manufacturing equipment, according to the WSJ. The factory is now mainly occupied by low-wage Tesla analysts who work on other company business and do not serve in manufacturing roles.
Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who orchestrated the deal to build the factory, secured an additional 750 million for the project over his years in office, making the state government’s investment in the facility $959 million, according to the WSJ.
While Cuomo has since leaving office defended the project, stating that the site has more jobs than it would have as an abandoned lot, several New York state lawmakers criticized the former governor’s striking of the deal with Musk, the WSJ reported.
“It was a bad deal. A cautionary tale is you can’t give governors too much power to get on the phone with egotistical billionaires,” state Sen. Sean Ryan told the WSJ.
State Sen. Liz Krueger, a Democrat who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said that the state should fund projects aimed at building infrastructure and training workers rather than “spending billions of taxpayer dollars pretending we’re very good at being angel investors,” according to the WSJ.
E.J. McMahon, founding senior fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy, said that the factory deal was wasteful.
“In terms of sheer direct cost to taxpayers, this may rank as the single biggest economic development boondoggle in American history,” McMahon told the WSJ.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.
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