Musk moved to Texas to get tax breaks on the battery factory and to get Texas to allow him to sell teslas there. Now that he's used them up, he's ready to come back. Too bad, they deserved each other.
@Gambit_1 And I suspected that the Great State of Texas totally failed to protect themselves by imposing clawback rules if Tesla came just for the initial incentives and moved on after...say, 2 years.
@gshevlin you'd think they would get wise to it, but every time a big company comes calling (Amazon is also a great example) local governments fall all over themselves. Bush was wrong when he said "Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, I won't get fooled again." ;)
@Gambit_1 Until voters start voting for less corrupt politicians, this will continue.
@Gambit_1 Elon is engaging in what economists call rent-seeking. All corporations of any size do it.
The problem is that governments almost never extract any binding commitments from corporations. They hand over property tax abatements, tax concessions and other forms of subsidies in return for non legally-binding promises to locate buildings and create jobs.
When WI started to hold FoxConn to its promises after Scott Walker left, FoxConn suddenly disappeared.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a39598650/wisconsin-foxconn-tax-breaks-university-funding/