zigag09 said:

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What about government transparency?

Don't the residents of Grimes County deserve to know the specifics of the deal the county made with a private company?

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The decision has been made by elected officials. It's time to move on and make the best of it.

"Government transparency" demands are just an opener from those upset at the decision who want to continue to throw a tantrum about it. If you don't like the decision, then work to elect someone else the next time. But continuing to throw a fit isn't going to reverse the decision.

zigag09 said:

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What about government transparency?

Don't the residents of Grimes County deserve to know the specifics of the deal the county made with a private company?

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It sure seems like the details have been hashed out in public already. Two school districts, the county, and the state have looked over everything in public hearings and given a thumbs up. I don't perceive any undercover pull the wool over people's eyes here.

I'd like to see full disclosure of who is bankrolling these frivolous lawsuits. Defending them from these malcontents is costing taxpayer dollars. Talk about waste!

Maybe someone should filed a FOIA for that information.

zigag09 said:

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What about government transparency?

Don't the residents of Grimes County deserve to know the specifics of the deal the county made with a private company?

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The entirety of all three tax abatement agreements are public documents. I don't know what happened during the negotiations. I have a feeling that the county left some money on the table because they didn't want to lose the project. SpaceX wanted the location, had already invested in the project and were unlikely to leave. The county probably was in a stronger negotiating position than they thought. Instead of a fixed $20,000,000 per year, I would have preferred that it would eventually increased periodically to take inflation into account. Overall it is not a bad deal for the county.

BuddysBud said:

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zigag09 said:

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What about government transparency?

Don't the residents of Grimes County deserve to know the specifics of the deal the county made with a private company?

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The entirety of all three tax abatement agreements are public documents. I don't know what happened during the negotiations. I have a feeling that the county left some money on the table because they didn't want to lose the project. SpaceX wanted the location, had already invested in the project and were unlikely to leave. The county probably was in a stronger negotiating position than they thought. Instead of a fixed $20,000,000 per year, I would have preferred that it would eventually increased periodically to take inflation into account. Overall it is not a bad deal for the county.

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Even without accounting for inflation 20 mil is nothing to sneeze at. Plus the facility will continue to grow and presumably bring in more money to the area over time.

zigag09 said:

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The county has failed to release the records that the Attorney General determined should be released to the public, and public accountability still means something to some people.

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If the county out of compliance with the AG, shouldn't the AG be responsible for enforcing the release of the documents?

Yes, accountability is important. But proper use of resources is also important. If there is any evidence of illegal activity was involved in the tax abatement process, then the state AG, DPS and possibly the DOJ should begin an investigation.

Frivolous lawsuits in civil court are just going to make lawyers rich and most likely will not get the results and accountability that you desire.

The Terafab project is going well https://t.co/YdiMcVF8qi

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 30, 2026

Elon says it's going well.


Notice the trend in the people behind that grimes county Facebook group and who the majority of the comments come from.

zigag09 said:

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The public first had access to the three county agreement documents on June 5, 2026, two days after commissioners voted to approve them on June 3.

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Indeed we live in a representative republic where we hire people to represent us in government via elections. We don't live in a democracy where everyone votes on every issue. Our representatives represented us for a contract that will provide long term economic gain for the county. Perhaps it doesn't seem like a good decision to some, but it at least gives the county some control of the economic growth before it gets absorbed into the Houston metroplex, which is already happening in the southern part of the county.

zigag09 said:

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What about government transparency?

Don't the residents of Grimes County deserve to know the specifics of the deal the county made with a private company?

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The fully executed agreement is public.
https://grimescountytexas.gov/index.asp?SEC=29DD23F1-21FF-472B-9DB3-CC5315345627&utm_source=chatgpt.com

People always want to nitpick the details. Seems they think every conversation should be on the record - neither right or left want or could make that standard. Good post of the link. Move along. Leave your donation to Xi at the box by the door….

BuddysBud said:

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zigag09 said:

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What about government transparency?

Don't the residents of Grimes County deserve to know the specifics of the deal the county made with a private company?

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The entirety of all three tax abatement agreements are public documents. I don't know what happened during the negotiations. I have a feeling that the county left some money on the table because they didn't want to lose the project. SpaceX wanted the location, had already invested in the project and were unlikely to leave. The county probably was in a stronger negotiating position than they thought. Instead of a fixed $20,000,000 per year, I would have preferred that it would eventually increased periodically to take inflation into account. Overall it is not a bad deal for the county.

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I've seen companies spend quite a bit on environmental and engineering assessments of multiple sites at once as they narrow it down to the final site. Obviously Grimes was SpaceX first choice, but it is possible they could have punted on Grimes County and pivoted to the second choice without too much of a delay. Supposedly, they had been in negotiations on another site. This was a project that will eventually exceed 50 billion. It isn't like a few million on a backup site would really matter.

The 20 million per year (with 10 million up front) for the initial years is a pretty good deal for the county. That is the equivalent of roughly a 5 billion valuation, which wouldn't be reached until the minimum investment of 5 billion by 2030 was reached. So it front loads revenue the county will need to get a jump on infrastructure needs.

For reference, the 20 million annual payment roughly doubles the "tax revenue" for Grimes county. That is a sweet deal for the county, and that might have been a factor. In all likelihood there will be additional associated businesses that want to locate close to SpaceX. What Grimes needs to do is be a little stingy with the tax incentives of those, and be just a little sweeter than Brazos and CoB/CoCS.

Another thing to consider: the 20 million cap on the backend end only applies to county M&O taxes. Bond/debt payments, road and bridge fund, and voter approved special purpose taxes appear to be excluded. The complete project at $50-100 billion (relative to the roughly $5 billion of other taxable property) would effectively be paying any debt service for the county.

Structured as 100% tax abatement with the 20 million payment for the first 10 years, it helps the county in a number of other ways. Their tax rate is independent of the 20 million from SpaceX for the next decade so they can lower taxes without effecting the take from SpaceX. They also won't be forced into basically cutting the tax rate in half to avoid a voter approval election (triggered by an increase in tax revenue by more than 3.5%)