N.Y. Lawmakers Fight Trump With a Proposal Targeting Elon Musk
The New York Times
A bill would authorize an audit of a state deal allowing Tesla to lease a factory site near Buffalo for $1 a year, and would create a way for the state to claw back subsidies.
For weeks, New York leaders have watched President Trump issue executive orders, slash federal funding and direct Elon Musk to shrink the government work force, while trying to determine how it all may affect the state.
Now some state lawmakers are trying to strike back.
Two Democratic legislators are introducing a bill on Wednesday aimed at Mr. Musk and the so-called Buffalo Billion project, in which the state spent $959 million to build and equip a plant that Mr. Musk’s company leases for $1 a year to operate a solar panel and auto component factory.
The bill would require an audit of the state subsidy deal to “identify waste, fraud and abuse committed by private parties to the contract.” It would determine whether the company, Tesla, was meeting job creation targets, making promised investments, paying enough rent and honoring job training commitments.
If Tesla was found to be not in compliance, the state could claw back state benefits, impose penalties or terminate contracts.
“It is the height of hypocrisy that Elon Musk, the man who is dismantling federal agencies and doing enormous damage on the basis of wildly unsubstantiated claims of waste, fraud and abuse, is the beneficiary of one of the biggest, shadiest subsidy deals of all time,” the two lawmakers, Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal and Assemblyman Micah Lasher, said in a statement.
