Thread by @montana_skeptic

1/ A thread on the crooked RiverBend Agreement between $tsla & New York State, the subject of my latest article. cc: @NYSComptroller, @NYGovCuomo, & @EmpireStateDev.

Is the latest amendment incompetence or outright corruption? You decide.

$tsla

2/ In February, @NYSComptroller sent @EmpireStateDev a copy of its draft audit report on the RiverBend project. Under the RiverBend Agreement, Silevo, Inc. (then a SolarCity subsidiary, and now a $tsla subsidiary) was to receive $750 million of factory & equipment in Buffalo.

3/ What was Silevo to do with that equipment? Why, according to @NYGovCuomo, to change the world. To revolutionize renewable energy. To manufacture in Buffalo its miraculous solar panels using the astonishing Triex technology (which, of course, soon proved to be a complete bust).

4/ The RiverBend Agreement went through many amendments. All of them very quietly made. Extension after extension. And then some hugely suspicious watering down of the employment obligations of Silveo (now owned by $tsla) for which New York State received... exactly nothing.

5/ Who approved this mess? Who was supposed to supervise it? Who blessed each amendment? @EmpireStateDev, that's who, each of whose member is appointed by... wait for it... @NYGovCuomo.

6/ The February draft audit report excoriated ESD for its abject failures. ESD was given lots of time to comment on the draft. The final report was published late last month. You can read about it here. (h/t the splendid @DanTelvock)
wivb.com/news/scathing-…

7/ But what happened between February and August? Why, another amendment (the Eleventh) to the deal. And, having been chastened in February, did @EmpireStateDev suddenly get religion? Why, no. Not at all. In fact, to the very contrary.

8/ The Eleventh Amendment is so bad, so insulting to NYS taxpayers, so profligate with their money, so indulgent to this massively rich company with its multi-billionaire-serial-liar CEO (as I detail in my latest article, link at the end), that there are but few explanations...

9/ First, ESD determined to give @NYSComptroller the middle finger. To tell Mr. DiNapoli, in essence, 'Hey, you think what we've done before is bad? Try this on for size!'

10/ Second, ESD is simply overwhelming and profoundly inept and stupid, at every desk, in every corner office, in every imaginable way. Sadly, that's not altogether implausible.

11/ Third, rank corruption. Read my article and tell me whether that's implausible.

12/ Sticking in my craw, though, are some serious shortcomings of the audit report. Somehow, it overlooks the three greatest deficiencies in the original RiverBend Agreement, none of which has been remedied.

13/ First, a material part of $tsla's promises was to spend $5 billion on the project (cap ex, operating expenses, anything else Tesla could possibly allocate to the project). Tesla has spend only a small fraction of that thus far. And the remedy for failure is...

14/ Alas, NYS has no remedy under the agreement. None at all.

15/ Second, another material $tsla promise was to provide 5,000 jobs in New York State. But the agreement addresses the remedy only for 1,460 of those jobs. What about the other 3,540? NYS has absolutely no recourse in the event of default (which is happening).

16/ Third, in exchange for $750 million of NYS spending at $tsla's direction (now swollen to $988 million), spent mostly up front in 2015-2017, NYS can recover from Tesla, in the event of default on the 1,460 jobs, only $412 million, spread out until 2028.

17/ Someone explain to me, how could @NYSComptroller miss these enormous failures? Does it all run deeper than I imagine?

18/ Here's the link to my article. Read it and weep. And, please, someone send the hard copy to DiNapoli.

cc: @bethanymac12

seekingalpha.com/article/437314…

19/ btw, shoutout to @RickArnonal, to whose tweet I linked in my latest @SeekingAlpha.

https://twitter.com/RickArnonal/status/1235325151081881601