Fulton board cannot reach consensus, no tax breaks awarded to X Corp., formerly Twitter

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – On Tuesday, the Fulton County Development Authority could not reach a consensus on whether to award X Corp., formerly Twitter, with $10 million in tax breaks over 10 years.

Four board members voted for the abatements and four board members voted against them.

Board members Brandon Beach, Mike Bodker, Pinky Cole, and Kwanza Hall voted for the tax breaks.

Marty Turpeau, Kyle Lamont, Laura Kurlander-Nagel, and Erica Long voted against them.

Board member Mike Looney was absent.

“Clearly I supported it, so I would say I’m disappointed anytime something I support doesn’t happen,” said Bodker, former mayor of Johns Creek.

Because the proposal was not outright rejected, the tax breaks could see another vote in an upcoming meeting.

“I think there was things injected into this conversation that I know that were either injected behind the scenes or in front of the scenes, and if that’s going to be the way we’re going to measure transactions in the future, people need to understand politics cuts both ways,” said Bodker, in an interview with Atlanta News First after the vote.

During the discussion, board member Laura Kurlander-Nagel cautioned Fulton County against supporting the social media site.

“X Corp. has allowed a significant amount of hate speech to come out, whether that is a first amendment right is an issue,” said Kurlander-Nagel.

“I feel very strongly that this is not something that we need to support as a board nor should we,” she continued.

Dhruv Batura, of X Corp., represented the social media company saying the development in Fulton County would allow them to further innovation around AI technology.

Batura said X Corp., through advanced AI, is working to improve the integrity of the social media platform to promote free speech.

“This is the first of its kind,” Batura said, referencing the technology that could be advanced in Atlanta.

“It would power additional large-language model projects. You may be familiar with OpenAI Chat GPT 3.5, which again has had some allegations of bias, et cetera. We are and have beta-launched already a version of that that we believe will eventually outperform what’s latest, what’s available from OpenAI today,” said Batura during the board meeting.

There were a handful of members of the public who gave public comment before the vote– all were against the tax breaks for data centers like X Corp.’s proposal.

“Now if data centers are coming in because that’s what the market supports and they want to bring their business and add to the tax base, yes, great, love it, but they don’t need a tax break in order to do that. We should be giving tax breaks to affordable housing, food, transportation,” said Arthur Toal, president of the Howell Station Neighborhood Association.

The development of the X Corp. would happen at 1025 Jefferson St. in northwest Atlanta, at the site of the QTS Data Center.

In April, QTS sought roughly $45 million in tax breaks from Fulton County. That proposal was tabled after public pushback. The data center company did not revive the ask.

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