Portion of Tesla's taxes to be invested into community

DEL VALLE, Texas - A portion of taxes from Tesla have to be invested back into the community. The electric vehicle company gave a report to the Travis County Commissioners Court. 

"Tesla has an obligation to spend an equivalent of at least 10 percent of the operations and maintenance ad valorem property tax owed by the company over the term of the agreement in one or more of the programs identified," said Christy Moffett, director of economic development with Travis County.

Their maintenance and operations taxes in 2022 were just over $2.9 million, the 10 percent requirement would be $298,000.

In 2020, Tesla founder Elon Musk announced the company's new headquarters in Del Valle. It opened in April 2022, with the promise of reinvesting in the area. 

Tesla has different community partnerships, and they have various workforce development programs, including for Del Valle ISD. 

"These things demonstrate to youth that there is something on the other side if [they] stay in school," said Jeff Travillion, Travis County Precinct 1 Commissioner. 

They also spoke about the factory's economic impact. 

"To see what has happened there because of the hard work of a lot of people, it's really cool to see that," Rohan Patel, director of public policy at Tesla, said.

Plus, they want to expand a 120-acre pilot project for ecological restoration west of the factory. 

"The whole goal with this pilot project, which is a fairly large pilot project, is to get a lot of learnings about what works on this site and maybe what doesn't and continue applying this along our river frontage," Logan Grant with factory engineering at Tesla said. 

Commissioners approved a $750,000 community investment plan for 2023. 

"This is really impressive. I know there's lots of chatter in the community about Musk and Tesla and all of that, but what you're created here is really remarkable," Brigid Shea, Travis County Precinct 2 Commissioner, said.