The last paragraph really blew me away:

<< By November, when Musk discussed the deal on an earnings call, he sounded exasperated with continued condemnation of the terms he had extracted from Nevada. Calling the deal a “super-good idea” for the state, he said the criticism “kind of bugs me. I thought we got an okay incentive package, given the scale, but not a super-huge one.” >>

If he honestly thinks that a $1.4 billion in tax breaks and free land is just a "okay" incentive package, it explains a lot about how he was able to ask for $500m cash upfront from the state to fund the factory.