SpaceX's $16.8 billion facility in Grimes County becomes center of public records legal fight

GRIMES COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) -- SpaceX's $16.8 billion chip manufacturing facility in Grimes County has become the center of a public records legal fight.

The facility, called Terafab, was announced earlier this year and is being built off Highway 30 near Anderson and the Gibbons Creek Reservoir. Elon Musk has said Terafab is expected to be the largest and most valuable building on Earth.

Residents want to know how the project came to Grimes County and how officials negotiated it.

Marie Egyed, director of operations for Grimes County Citizens for Responsible Development, said she moved to the area from Sugar Land in 2022 looking for a quieter life away from the city.

"We wanted to be away from the city, away from the traffic, away from construction," Egyed said. "Houston is always under construction, there's always road construction everywhere, the orange barrel city, right, so we wanted to get away from that, and here we find ourselves right in the middle of construction."

She said the 100-million-square-foot facility will change the town she knows and loves.

Her group submitted a public information request about the project.

"Where did the investment zone come from? How do we go from 6,000 acres at Gibbons Creek and surrounding area to a 22,249-acre reinvestment zone, when did that happen?" Egyed said. "How did that happen? Who was involved in choosing that reinvestment zone? We would like to know about how the scope of the project came about. We would like to know who negotiated this deal?"

Their attorney said officials would not release all the information they requested.

In September, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Ken Paxton's office and Grimes County. The petition seeks to prevent the county from releasing confidential information SpaceX submitted during negotiations.

This week, attorney Bill Aleshire filed a separate petition on behalf of Grimes County Citizens for Responsible Development, asking the county to release the records.

Aleshire said under the public information act, community members have a right to know what happened behind the scenes on a project that will increase taxes and traffic.

"They're keeping their own citizens in the dark about something that really is a big deal," Aleshire said. "We know that that huge facility is affecting thousands of acres of land, and it's going to affect the lifestyle of people there in Grimes County."

Egyed said things are already changing in the community, with people flying in for lunch on helicopters. She said she knows the project will not be stopped, and that there are mixed feelings about the roughly 3,000 new jobs the county is expected to gain.

She said she wants transparency.

"Whatever is legally required to be given to us, we want to," Egyed said. "We are not going to stop fighting for that information for sure."

ABC13 reached out to SpaceX, Grimes County officials, and the attorney general's office but had not heard back as of Thursday.