Nevada's $1.25 Billion Deal With Tesla For The Gigafactory Is Absolutely Massive

09-05-2014 • Business Insider

But as CNBC's Phil LeBeau reported ? both from the Nevada state house in Carson City and later in the middle of the Nevada desert near Reno (Somebody needs to hand Phil a bottle of water!) ? the crux of the deal has yet to be approved by the state legislature: the incentive package.

Tesla wanted $500 million from Nevada to ease the pain of building a $5 billion Gigafactory.

LeBeau noted what had already been widely discussed: Tesla was looking for $500 million in return for building the Gigafactory in Nevada.

But late Thursday, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported that the deal was actually more than twice that size: a whopping $1.25 billion.

"If the deal is approved by the Nevada Legislature, Tesla will operate in the state essentially tax free for 10 years," the RGJ's Anjeanette Damon wrote in a story that provided deep detail on the deal, which blows away the relatively meager $89 million terms that Apple negotiated with Nevada to expand operations in the state.