After moments of high tension and a lot of speculation Elon Musk In person, the whole wave of reports (and a presidential preview) about the installation of a new Tesla Motors factory has become official, but now in Mexico.
A day ago we reported the evolution of this tense negotiation between Musk and the Tesla Motors executives against the original wishes of the President of the Republic, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO).
Broadly speaking: The original plan was always to install the new Gigafactory of the automotive firm in Nuevo León or, failing that, somewhere close to a few hundred kilometers from the northern border.
However, the president sought to impose conditions for the plant to be built in his native Tabasco or next to the controversial Felipe Ángeles International Airport (AIFA), thousands of kilometers from the border.
The public escalation of this discussion reached the point where AMLO publicly declared that he would simply deny the permits if they sought to settle in Nuevo León, an entity that coincidentally is governed by an opposition party.
This project represented an investment of USD $10 billion and there was a moment when dozens of other territories in the country applied as new headquarters.
Until Elon Musk, according to reports, decided better to cancel everything to invest all that money in a plant inside Austin, Texas.
It was there that the negotiations changed and the government gave in. Now everything becomes official.
Elon Musk shares the first details of the future Tesla Motors Gigafactory in Mexico
According to a report from The Verge Tesla CEO Elon Musk finally announced Wednesday that the company will build its next Gigafactory in Mexico.
The revelation, as had been speculated, came during live Q&A sessions after Tesla’s Investor’s Day event.
At the conference, Musk also detailed the new phase of his Business Master Plan for the company, where his sixth Gigafactory will be a key piece.
During the event Musk revealed that the new factory will indeed be built in the Mexican state of Nuevo León, which shares a small border with Texas, the site of Tesla’s Austin Gigafactory.
Since December Elon would be actively looking for the location for this new project and this community in Mexico would have been chosen between two other previously discarded entities.
The first speculations pointed to a discreet investment of just USD $800 million or USD $1,000 million, but in the end it will be ten times that figure.