A Fulton County agency will reconsider granting a $10.1 million tax break for social media platform X after the controversial request failed last month in a tie vote.
The Development Authority of Fulton County (DAFC) board deadlocked after vigorous debate on whether the platform formerly known as Twitter should have its tax bill reduced to install new artificial intelligence computer equipment at an existing Atlanta data center. The project, estimated at $700 million, would not create any new jobs — though officials have said 24 existing ones will be retained, but at the cost of more than $420,000 per job.
Several residents voiced their opposition to the requested tax break during the Dec. 5 meeting, where X representatives pushed the DAFC board to quickly approve the project. The company is seeking both preliminary and final approval at the same meeting, which is a process that usually takes months.
During the December board meeting, Dhruv Batura, the X project lead, said the company could choose Portland, Oregon, for the project over Atlanta. Batura said X has shut down two other data centers as part of its recent cost-cutting efforts, but he said the company is looking to quickly get its AI technology online, regardless of the requested tax incentive, raising questions about whether the incentive is actually needed.
“Transparently, it’s very likely that we would start to put in some of these assets in the existing location (in Fulton County),” he said.
The social media platform, which is owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, owns and operates computer storage space with Qualified Technology Services (QTS) data center at 1025 Jefferson Street. The company’s AI startup called X.AI has already raised more than $130 million from investors, and X filed federal paperwork in December that it plans to raise up to $1 billion for the endeavor.
Musk recently sparked an advertiser boycott against X by endorsing an antisemitic post on the website, prompting a profanity-laden rant in November where he said the exodus could kill the company. The financial health of X was debated among DAFC board members before their vote last month, with disagreement over whether Musk’s status as the world’s richest man should factor into X’s tax abatement request.
DAFC officials said the X project would generate more than $16 million in new tax revenues over the next decade despite the requested incentive. The board also receives a fee in exchange for enacting a tax break.
DAFC, also known as Develop Fulton, has faced intense scrutiny in recent years for granting incentives where critics contend they are not needed. Last year, tax breaks for data centers and other industrial projects have raised complaints.
The authority approved nearly $112 million in tax breaks across eight projects last year.
The recent death of DAFC Chairman Marty Turpeau could play a role in how the board moves forward. Turpeau, 55, died last month following a brief illness. He was the fourth “no” vote that led to the tie, with one member absent. Following Turpeau’s death, the board has eight members, and all items need a majority to pass.
Turpeau was joined by Laura Kurlander-Nagel, Kyle Lamont and Erica Long in voting against the X request. State Sen. Brandon Beach, who has assumed temporary chairman duties, voted for the abatement along with Mike Bodker, Pinky Cole and Kwanza Hall. Board member Mike Looney was absent from the Dec. 5 meeting.
Further complicating matters, the method the authority uses to grant tax savings to developers and companies is also facing challenges. Since early December, the Fulton County Board of Assessors has declined to approve development authority appraisal requests after being accused by an Atlanta attorney of acting as a “rubber-stamp” for the deals to the detriment of other taxpayers.
Despite the Board of Assessors’ inaction, a Fulton County judge decided later in December to validate bonds central to those tax breaks anyway, creating a potential legal controversy in the bureaucratic process of transacting those incentives.
Develop Fulton meeting
The board’s meeting is at 2 p.m. Tuesday at Develop Fulton’s conference room at 141 Pryor St. SW, Suite 2052. It will be available to stream on Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/s/86964032025?pwd=SFRzWFVKMUwzUGdLYmFFejQwci9RQT09.
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