There are less than 3 million people living in NV. If I understand the article correctly and assuming it is NV who is going to write Elon a $3 billion check that is over $1,000 per man, woman and child in NV.
But that's exactly NOT what's going to happen. Don't be foolish.
They're currently collecting something very close to $0 per year worth of property tax on the windswept deserted land in question, and they'll continue to collect something closer to zero than $600 million on that land while the factory is under construction, while at the same time collecting millions more in property taxes on the new housing that will be built for the construction workers and early factory employees, and the sales tax for all their purchases at Wal*Mart and AutoZone.
Why write them a check?
3b in tax breaks means the company keeps the profits and employs a bunch of folks to spend money. Selling land in Nevada to anybody is a win for the state.
They are not writing any checks. If approved, the checks Elon writes to government would be reduced by $3 billion. That means the original tax checks for that time period would exceed $3 billion.