ATLANTA (AP) – A planned $5 billion electric vehicle plant that’s billed as the largest economic development project in Georgia’s history is drawing opposition from an unusual source: former Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue.
Perdue – also a former corporate executive – is looking to unseat Georgia governor and fellow Republican Brian Kemp in this year’s gubernatorial race. The campaigns have traded attacks on a range of issues in a contest spurred by former President Donald Trump following his election defeat in the state.
On Monday, Perdue ripped into Rivian Automotive’s planned battery and assembly plant east of Atlanta, which Kemp was expected to tout on the campaign trail as a major achievement.
The Irvine, California-based electric vehicle manufacturer announced last year that it would build the facility at the Georgia site, where it expects to eventually employ more than 7,500 workers and produce up to 400,000 vehicles a year. State and local officials have yet to disclose the value of financial incentives they offered to lure the project, but the figure is expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
“This bad deal is nothing more than a scheme by Kemp to promote himself in an election year at Georgians’ expense,” Perdue said in a statement. “Kemp thought he could get away with this under the guise of ‘economic development,’ but all he is doing here is selling us out and lining George Soros’s pockets.”