BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Empire State Development is considering temporarily relaxing job creation requirements for Tesla, and other businesses for one year.
A spokesperson for ESD issued this statement:
“The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shutdowns to save lives, has upended businesses across the globe and in New York State. To help mitigate those impacts, and provide reasonable and fair accountability, we are considering delaying job creation requirements tied to economic development programs for 12 months. This allows companies an opportunity to resume their job creation targets established before the crisis struck."
In February, Tesla said they had more than 1,500 jobs in Buffalo and more than 300 others across New York State.
On March 25, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the Buffalo Gigafactory would reopen as soon as humanly possible to produce ventilators. Employees had been furloughed during the pandemic.
However, state officials said they would not be making entire ventilators, just one part.