” Canoo, the electric vehicle startup that was promised$ 100 million in incentives, files for bankruptcy”, read the headline from The Oklahoman in mid-January, angering Oklahoma taxpayers opposed to both tax subsidies and the “green energy” agenda.
Consider Solyndra and its$ 570 million bailout, one more of the numerous natural energy scams that are draining the pockets of taxpayers all over the country.
Oklahoma’s Commerce Department declaring the collaboration “historic” and the governor forming a public-private collaboration in 2021. Kevin Stitt gushed about how” thrilled” he was that Oklahoma had “be a leader in electronic vehicle technology.” Of course, Tony Aquila, the CEO of Canoo, praised Stitt for effectively wooing the state’s promised 2, 000 work.
But by April of 2023, Canoo had yet to begin construction on its promised grow in Pryor, Oklahoma, and hadn’t finalized plans for an Oklahoma City grow either, causing Oklahoma’s Commerce Department to take at least one motivation deal and update others. Even though Canoo’s promise to buy a factory site in Oklahoma City has since been reduced to 1, 300, its city council voted to give it$ 1 million in incentives for job creation.
Canoo Begins To Sink
Canoo consented to a$ 1.5 million arrangement of a petition in August 2023 that the Securities and Exchange Commission had accused it of making “material mistakes in records filed with the SEC and sent to buyers.” Canoo’s 2023 SEC papers, which show losses of nearly$ 800 million over the past few years, were also published by local news media. Aquila, the CEO of Canoo, reportedly received more money for his personal jet’s repairs than Canoo had been posting in its income for several years.
Yet months later, Oklahoma paid Canoo$ 119, 850 for three electric Lifestyle Delivery Vehicles ( LDVs ), which were assigned to the Office of Management and Enterprise Services, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Corrections and had signed a no-bid contract to buy up to 1, 000 vehicles over five years.
Gov. Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnel said,” Beyond technology, Canoo is creating over 1, 300 work in Oklahoma, marking a major economic impact for the state,” while Lieutenant Governor Matt Pinnel praised the Office of Management and Enterprise Services for “working hard to deliver citizens more for their income while finding optimistic innovative ways to improve our ship.”
The Oklahoma City Manufacturing Facility in Canoo was approved as a “foreign business area” in a Canoo media release from March 2024, which stated that the service “presently employs more than 100 workers and will help as many as 1, 100 good-paying producing jobs at full capacity.”
Canoo’s 2024 third quarter results looked dismal, however, and a December Canoo press release announced,” the company has furloughed 82 employees, both salaried and hourly, and idling its factories in Oklahoma while it works to finalize securing the capital necessary to move forward with its operations”.
Two of the three state agencies that use Canoo vehicles reported that the vehicles were seeing “limited use” because there were no accessible charging stations, and that the company’s labor furloughs had reduced the number of employees below the threshold needed to collect many of the promised remaining incentives.  ,
Lies and No Apologies
And then came the real news. Local news station KFOR reported on December 19, 2024, that a “former high-level Canoo employee who recently left the company within the last few months” had come forward with the revelation that Canoo never built any vehicles in Oklahoma. The three vehicles that the state of Oklahoma purchased were produced by a different company, known as AFV, in Justin, Texas.
Additionally, 140 engineers Canoo promised to relocate to Oklahoma from California never did so, instead flying back and forth from the West Coast when necessary.
KFOR says they reached out to the governor’s office for a statement, but they never heard a word. They contacted the state Department of Commerce, which stated that it would try to” claw back” Canoo and had only given her$ 1 million.
Why did Gov. Stitt has plenty of time to thank the people of Oklahoma for their admirable “get,” but he doesn’t have enough time to apologize to the people of Oklahoma for using their tax dollars.
Did anyone from the state take the time to investigate this business before promising to give it millions in taxpayer money?
Paying For The Wind
For the answer, we can look at a pattern. Despite being a former governor of Oklahoma. In 2017, Mary Fallin revoked tax credits for new wind energy companies, NextEra received$ 91 million in Oklahoma Investment/New Jobs credits in 2022 and 2023, and the wind energy generation sector has reportedly received$ 1.25 billion in subsidies since 2013. Oklahoma employed about 400 people in the “wind electric power generation” sector from 2021 to 2023, according to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. With$ 191 million in tax credits, Oklahoma is paying about$ 382, 000 per worker — about seven times more than the average Oklahoma wage.
As NextEra is sponging up fat Oklahoma tax credits, they’re protesting the county tax valuations for their wind installations. For instance, in a school district, NextEra protested 80 % of its 2020 property taxes.
One school district now has a$ 35 million state aid loss and a$ 40 million hole in their sinking fund as a result of a previous district court ruling that federal production tax credits are not taxable and must be removed from county property tax valuations. Due to the ruling, counties with wind installations will now have to reevaluate those property values.
This stings. NextEra, a publicly listed, private investor-backed company with Wall Street, has benefited from$ 2.4 billion in federal funding in addition to the nearly$ 1.5 billion in public funding provided by the state of Oklahoma, but they object to the return of taxpayer funds to school districts in the counties where they have wind turbine installations.
NextEra also funded three lobbyists at the Oklahoma State Capitol and nearly$ 6 million in lobbying in 2024 to win over 16 different federal agencies. Last year, NextEra’s directors were sued for “political misconduct”  , after a series of dark money-funded attempts to move votes away from a Florida Democrat during the 2020 election cycle. Does this not equate to paying taxes to lobbyists in order to receive more tax money?
Americans Taking Action
Fortunately, Americans are starting to understand the green scam and the tax incentives that fuel it. Legislative Organization Day at the Oklahoma State Capitol in January marked the start of a campaign against green energy. Several bills have been introduced to repress green energy and halt or reduce taxpayer subsidies. This is good news, but as a matter of fact, at least one Oklahoma legislator made this point this month, billions of dollars in taxpayer money are being diverted elsewhere for corporate welfare.
Those responsible for the Canoo scandal and billions in corporate welfare should be made to accept responsibility for their disregard for the welfare of the public. Yet Gov. Stitt’s office has demonstrated that they will simply not respond to requests for comment and will attempt to ride-off scot-free to their upcoming, disastrous plan supported by someone else’s money.
