Tesla Solar Factory Not Living Up to New York’s $1 Billion Investment

July 10, 2023

In exchange for $1 billion, the state expected 5,000 jobs and 1,000 installations a week. Instead, it reported 1,700 jobs, most of them Tesla data analysts, and 21 installations per week.

by Joe Lancaster Reason.com

Public funding for private development projects is a bad deal, even according to state governments’ own numbers. A new Wall Street Journal report shows that even the world’s richest people are not immune from the lure of other people’s money—nor are they particularly good stewards of it.

The paper reported on a solar panel factory in Buffalo, New York, operated by SolarCity, a company co-founded by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. When the factory was announced in 2013, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo offered to help out. At the time, the state hoped to revitalize Buffalo as a manufacturing hub, planning “to incubate a handful of small startups in promising economic niches.”

Instead, the state blew its entire budget on one project, pledging $750 million to build a 1.2 million-square-foot factory, which it would lease to SolarCity for $1 a year, plus another $240 million to purchase manufacturing equipment.