The project would create not only more than 1,400 direct jobs, but spin-off development that would provide a supply chain employing thousands of additional workers.Podcast: Shoemaker discusses how he reported the story and what he found Employees told Investigative Post that the current solar work takes up less than 20 percent of the plant’s sprawling 1.2 million square feet, built and equipped with $959 million in state tax dollars.About 500 jobs — nearly one-third of the current workforce of 1,636 — are those entry-level desk positions, in which workers label images from the company’s self-driving vehicle software — merge signs, turning lanes, pedestrians — in an attempt to train the autonomous driving algorithms.Cuomo, at the time, celebrated the pivot as a “landmark investment and economic game-changer.” The state’s investment, meanwhile, shot up to $750 million in exchange for more jobs, a total of at least 1,460.“Latest feedback from major investors is very negative on SolarCity,” Musk wrote to Peter Rive in September 2016, prior to the acquisition, according to emails released as part of the lawsuit aggrieved shareholders filed against Musk in 2017."