Building and running a massive launch site like the one SpaceX is planning in Vermilion Parish is going to take a lot of workers — around 3,000 — an economic opportunity the company and its supporters in state government have used to defend the secretive process it took to bring the project to Louisiana.
But the contract the company struck with the recently revived Vermilion Parish Industrial Board puts into question how much insight the public will have on whether SpaceX makes good on its promises — and whether local leaders make use of their power to impose penalties if it doesn’t.
The contract in Vermilion Parish, along with SpaceX’s strategy in Texas, provides a glimpse into how the company might respond to public records requests.
The contract between the IDB and SpaceX lays out how many jobs will be created in the years to come, and penalties if those numbers aren’t met. The board can request a third-party audit to double check SpaceX’s numbers — ultimately informing whether it should wield one of the few sticks it was given if the company comes up short.
But language in the contract states that any “information learned or disclosed in connection with any such audit is confidential information of [SpaceX] and shall not be disclosed or used by the [IDB] except as expressly authorized herein,” a provision that could prevent the release of job data to the public.
The contract also requires the board to notify the company of requests for the information and give it the ability to intervene.
‘Reverse FOIAs’
“It’s problematic in general,” says Virginia Hamrick, a Louisiana staff attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “There’s a presumption that public records are public, and this kind of shifts that.”
“When there are terms added to contracts between government bodies and third parties that give the third party notice that a records request was made and give an opportunity to contest a disclosure, that is shifting that presumption of access,” she adds.
Louisiana public records law already exempts trade secrets and proprietary information from disclosure, but companies must specifically identify the information they want withheld.
Hamrick says a claim that job numbers are proprietary would not hold up in court, but it would require someone challenging the company if it tries to prevent their release to make that case.
David Cuillier, director of the Freedom of Information Project at the Brechner Center for the Advancement of the First Amendment, says it’s good the agreement acknowledges Louisiana’s public records law but he’s wary about the required notification to SpaceX, arguing that a citizen could lack the means to fight a record denial due to company intervention.
“We call those reverse FOIAs [Freedom of Information Act],” Cuillier tells The Current. “We’ve seen this abused all around the country, where particularly a wealthy corporation — that has lots of money and lots of lawyers — will get wind that there’s some public records about to be released … even if the agency says they’re public and the exemptions don’t apply.”
While this kind of language may be included in other contracts, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Janice Hebert says SpaceX made a deliberate choice to include it.
“A contract this big is not boilerplate,” Hebert says.
Mike Busada, the IDB’s attorney, says SpaceX’s job numbers would be public record and would be provided to the state’s department of labor. It’s unclear if SpaceX plans to provide job numbers if they are requested. The company did not respond to requests for comment.
A Texas test case
If Texas is any indication, SpaceX certainly could put up a fight.
The company is currently suing the Texas attorney general and Grimes County to block the release of information related to its Terafab facility, a planned semiconductor manufacturing facility near College Station. Terafab is a joint venture by Tesla and SpaceX, both of which CEO Elon Musk leads. Intel is also a partner in the project.
Grimes County Citizens for Responsible Development, a local group advocating against large-scale industrial development, along with a Grimes County resident, filed records requests covering land acquisition and purchase records, tax break applications and any communications that relate to negotiations with county officials — all of which the company is looking to block from release.
Grimes County argued that it shouldn’t have to release the records, an argument Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton struck down, ordering the release of most records and leading to the current lawsuit, filed by SpaceX itself against Paxton and the county to prevent their release.
SpaceX argues the requested records, especially as they relate to negotiations, contain trade secrets that would cause “substantial competitive harm” if released, and that they include negotiations of a contract before a deal was made and information that could lead to vulnerabilities of critical infrastructure that could be exploited in an “act of terrorism.”
In Texas, public records are presumed to be open to the public, but in cases where a government body argues they are exempt, it has to go to the AG’s office to argue its case, according to Kelley Shannon, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
In a 2025 analysis of public records requests sent to 24 government bodies across Texas, the foundation found that SpaceX’s company town, Starbase, sent 22% of its public records requests to the Texas AG’s office in order to argue their exemption, the second highest rate the foundation found in the state.
Public access to information about a large industrial project’s operations is important, Shannon says, adding that companies like SpaceX have real world impacts on power grids, water, noise and overall quality of life of citizens.
“The public needs to know what’s going on around them and their communities,” Shannon says. “Whether it’s a launch site, whether it’s a data center, whatever it might be.”
Bill Aleshire, an attorney representing the Grimes County citizens group, says he’s confident the SpaceX lawsuit will be dismissed and that the requested information will be made public, adding that, at least in Texas, companies frequently try to intervene in public records being released.
“It’s pretty usual,” Aleshire says, noting that doesn’t mean it should go unopposed. “The public has a right to know how and why decisions are being made by [their] government officials.”
