‘Last Stages of Desperation’: Inside Tulsa’s Courtship of Elon Musk

On March 13, 2020, venture capitalist Michael Basch sent an email with the subject line “Tesla update” to two members of Tulsa, Oklahoma’s economic development team. Basch said he had just spoken to Elon Musk’s former chief of staff, Sam Teller, in order to get intel on how Tulsa could entice Musk to build Tesla’s next factory in the city. In order to do that, Basch reported, Tulsa needed to get out of Musk’s way.

“The biggest, most important thing they are looking for is the speed to which they can go from 0 to getting cars off the line,” Basch wrote. “To quote Sam, ‘Speed is music to Elon’s ears.’”

This email, along with 937 other pages of records obtained by Motherboard from a public records request, provide a detailed example of what it looks like when a city begs a billionaire to open a business or factory there, a process cities across the country repeat on varying scales as a matter of course. While the Amazon HQ2 saga was the most prominent example, cities regularly expend inordinate amounts of energy on such things, and it is a process those who work in the field of “economic development” increasingly recognize is little more than a glorified pageantry to make rich people like them.

“The second is the ease of doing business,” Basch continued. “Incentives are important,” he said, referring to the bevy of tax incentives and subsidies cities and states offer corporations to relocate to their area, “but more important is will the government be cooperative? They had a good experience with Nevada and Shanghai in this regard. There were struggles in California on this front.”

So far, these were fairly traditional economic development recommendations: Give corporations money and then get out of their way, often dressed up with euphemisms such as having a “business-friendly climate.” But the third point went beyond this, and demonstrated just how difficult it would be for Tulsa to get the Tesla factory. 

“The third is, will they want to visit?” Basch said. “This won’t drive their decision, but if you look at places they’ve set up shop in the past, they are in cities that are fun to be in. Sam advised that we acknowledge up-front that we know we’re fighting an uphill battle…He said that Elon knows nothing about Oklahoma so this is our opportunity to surprise him, and that we should show him what there is to do here.”

Over the next several months, Tulsa economic development officials, influential local business leaders like Basch and nonprofit foundations pulled out every possible stop to convince Musk to like Tulsa, an effort that was so thirsty for Musk’s approval that even some city employees believed it to be debasing and sad, emails show. The city repainted a seven-story statue in Musk’s likeness, prepared Google Docs and slide deks about how “cool” Tulsa is, issued desperate pleas to Musk from the Mayor’s office, and generally executed what Basch described in another email as a “full court press” to get that factory, which mostly involved getting one of the world’s richest people to think they’re cool. 

The day of the big publicity stunt involving the repainted statue, one employee in the engineering department emailed some colleagues, “Tesla is just playing us to get a better deal from Austin.” Another city employee in the finance department emailed some other coworkers, “Notice: there is a PC [press conference] happening underneath the Golden Elon right now. Random speakers talking up T-town. Small crowd clapping. Tesla cars parked all around. Myr [mayor] about to speak. We are now in the last stages of desperation.” 

Playing a pivotal role in this bid for Musk’s approval was Basch, who moved to Tulsa in 2018 from New York to start Atento Capital, a VC firm with a single partner, the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF), a prominent Tulsa philanthropy group also heavily involved in the Tesla bid. On Atento’s website, Basch describes his role as straddling “both investment and economic development.” In the emails, Basch comes across as an influential figure in the Tulsa business community and a Musk whisperer of sorts, helping city staff figure out, for example, what Musk may or may not find funny or interesting, although it is not clear from the emails whether he actually knows Musk. 

For Tulsa officials, the prospect of luring Tesla presented a peculiar challenge, because it simultaneously had to prove to Musk that Tulsa is cool while also not resorting to “super sales-y bullshit,” as Basch put it. Teller reportedly advised Basch, “Speak their language and show them your energy.” 

Traditionally, when cities or countries try to attract a new headquarters or factory to their area, they stress what a good business decision it would be to do so. Perhaps they mention local tax incentive programs, a general business-friendly climate in the local government and state legislature, or a ready and willing workforce to accept lower, non-unionized wages.

Back when he worked in economic development in New York City and later in Washington D.C in the mid-2000s and early 2010s, David Zipper used to play that game. But he told Motherboard that now, looking back on his experience, one anecdote stands out. A friend working on moving his company’s headquarters told Zipper a joke. “‘You know, David,’” Zipper recalled to Motherboard, “‘They say there’s a 100-page book about how to attract a headquarters to your city.’ And I said, is that right? He said, ‘Yeah, the first 99 pages are blank. And then the last page says, ‘Where does the CEO want to live?’”

From Basch’s email, which was one of the earliest in the records produced to Motherboard, Tulsa’s boosters seemed to understand this was their biggest challenge: To convince Musk that Tulsa is, if not somewhere he will live, at least a place he wouldn’t mind visiting every once in a while.

And they thought it could be done. Among its many attributes, which Basch outlined in a 2018 Medium post announcing his personal move to Tulsa, the city boasts a passionate and well-funded local foundation ecosystem, led by the George Kaiser Family Foundation (GKFF). It also has a low cost of living, an arts district, breweries, and green spaces. 

Kian Kamas, the city’s Chief of Economic Development, spent six days after Basch’s email thinking about how to pitch this to Musk. “Did a ton of thinking since our discussion,” she wrote on March 19 to members of the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and Basch. She recommended they lean into “the company’s voice” in their pitch. “Ultimately, senior execs and board members have two first order priorities—does this fit with our mission and how will it make us more money?” She wrote optimistically. “If we can speak directly to that, I think we’ll have a chance at being successful or getting their attention.”

Among her suggestions, Kamas recommended calculating how much CO2 would be saved by using 100 percent renewable energy at the factory, a major aspect of the city’s bid, because, as she states in her email “This blog post shows that Elon loves calculating things.” (The records produced did not include the actual hyperlink to the blog post in question.) “We could also pitch some crazy ideas in this section that speak to the company’s desire to find innovation solution [sic] to major global needs,” Kamas added, which included a bullet point for “Hyperloop.”

While working on the pitch, the team also kept an eye out for anything Musk said publicly that might help their cause. On March 26, Kamas emailed Basch with a link to a Popular Mechanics article that claimed Musk will “revolutionize HVAC systems.” Motherboard was able to see this link because the URL was pasted into the email text. Musk has occasionally mentioned that Tesla could make energy-efficient home HVAC systems over the years without ever showing any sign of seriously pursuing it.

Kamas asked Basch to “shoot an email to your contacts about this” because it was an “Excellent opportunity to say something like, ‘Hey, saw the latest announcement for your next venture. In case you didn’t know, Tulsa is literally the heat exchanger capital of the world. Fun fact, our location quotient for heat exchanger manufacturing is [67]. Tulsa is home to some of the best HVAC expertise and workforce in the world.” She also emailed her colleagues in the city government with the same link. “Interesting development that will help us make our case stronger!”

To help with the bid, GKFF tapped a former Obama administration staffer Seth Andrew as a consultant because, as Kamas explained in a March 30 ermail, “He did work in the Obama White House and knows Rohan [Patel, Tesla’s senior global director of public policy], who is leading the site search.” Although Kamas says in the email Andrew was a “consultant,” GKFF told Motherboard, “Mr. Andrew was an unpaid volunteer in his help on this effort.” Andrew worked in education policy and recently pled guilty to one count of wire fraud for stealing more than $200,000 from a network of charter schools he founded. 

On March 29, Andrew emailed Basch, GKFF staff, and Kamas with an update containing good news. He had just spent 90 minutes on the phone with Tesla employee Chris Reilly who “leads their education and workforce effort based in NV” where the company has another factory. The call went well, Andrew reported. “In short, Chris and I are now fast-friends and geeked-out on education and workforce training. I can definitely leverage it, and he left the conversation a definite advocate for Tulsa! Happy to find time tomorrow to discuss or review a document or two.” 

He also said Reilly promised to “help get the BFF tulsa website in front of Elon.” This referred to a supposedly grassroots-made website called Big Fucking Field, a Meme-fueled website that itself was a reference to a SpaceX ship reportedly named “big fucking rocket.” The website was put together by a local creative agency called GitWit. GitWit’s co-founders told The Verge they put the site together, which went up on March 17, “on a whim,” but according to the emails they were already working on a separate project building a website for Tulsa’s economic opportunity zones. Two days after Big Fucking Field went up, they were looped into Kamas’s strategy email about using Tesla’s “voice” in their proposal. When asked about this timing, Jacob Johnson of GitWit told Motherboard “We connected with city and state officials on the ‘official’ Tesla recruiting efforts after the organic recruiting efforts had been launched and were getting traction.”

Between March 31 and May 16, there are virtually no documents provided by the City of Tulsa to Motherboard’s records request. Perhaps this is because those working on it used the codename “Project Cyber,” which city staffer Michelle Barnett reminded everyone to do on May 16: “In all correspondence, please reference Project Cyber rather than client specific names. This project and its potential location remains highly confidential.” It is also possible all resources were temporarily put towards addressing the Coronavirus crisis, although The Verge previously reported the effort continued “throughout March and April.” After publication, a spokesperson for the city told Motherboard, “It is not uncommon for us to have periods where we do not hear from a project until we have reached a new milestone or decision point. During this time, our staff regularly shifts their focus to other projects in their workflow, which naturally reduces email traffic.”

Whatever happened during that time, the team was back at it in mid-May. By this point, Tulsa and Austin were the two finalists and there was an increased focus in juxtaposing Tulsa with the Texas capital. 

“As we discussed during our follow up call, one of the key themes I’d like for us to have as a theme when it comes to housing is that Tulsa and the region provides a location where population growth and resulting pressures on housing prices can avoid the pitfalls that cities like Austin are already deeply struggling with,” Kamas wrote. “To this point, I think we can speak to the programs and initiatives Tulsa is putting in place to ensure we don’t fall into the Austin trap, and to the availability of options that exist in closer proximity to the sites.”

In preparation for Musk’s visit to the city, the team pulled out all the stops. They designed Tulsa flag banners to hang from the light poles in the downtown area. The Tulsa police department dispatched an officer to assist “a production company that is making videos for promoting Tulsa for TESLA production plant,” according to a May 19 email from Tulsa Police Department Major Luther Breashears. Mayor G.T. Bynum tweeted a photoshop rendering of a Tulsa police-branded Cybertruck. A prominent Tulsa realtor compiled a list of five of their “top closers who can sell Tulsa” to send letters to Tesla promising to help relocate employees to the area. Someone at GKFF suggested Tulsa “could easily change its name,” presumably to Tesla. The governor put out a statement saying people regularly confuse the names Tesla and Tulsa. And, of course, GitWit painted the Golden Driller, a gigantic statue representing the state’s oil workers, with a Tesla logo.

Still, Tulsa faced long odds. On May 27, James Coles, another city staffer, reported in an email that according to “former Elon Chief of staff” Tulsa was “a serious underdog” at “5-10% chance for Tulsa.” 

Nevertheless, the full court press was still on. GitWit was working with a local recruiter to collect 5,000 resumes “for people that are interested in working for Tesla if they move here.” And, most importantly, they were still trying to convince Tesla that Tulsa is hip. Another staffer was “finishing compiling article [sic] requested by Tesla about why Tulsa is cool. Should be only 5 articles and Basch is writing cover letter. This will go to Tesla current chief of staff.” In a separate email that same day, Kamas wrote, “Since none of Tesla board have been to Tulsa the request was to get them acquainted and we tried to get this to make us look as cool as Austin.”

To do that, the team created a Powerpoint answering the question “Will Tesla employees want to move to and live in Tulsa?” It included, of course, a photo of the Golden Digger sporting his new logo. 

In the end, none of it worked, for exactly the reason everyone knew it wouldn’t. Tesla picked Austin, not because it would save them money or provided some inherent advantage, but because, as Musk put it, “key members of the team that would need to move to Austin…Austin [was] their top pick, to be totally frank.”