A $20 million loan by Georgia's Republican nominee for governor to a Texas oil refinery promoted by President Donald Trump has surfaced through testimony in an unrelated tax case, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.
Rick Jackson, a healthcare billionaire, loaned the money at 12% interest to America First Refining and holds an ownership stake in its plan to build the first new major U.S. refinery in half a century, on the Texas coast at Brownsville, according to Bloomberg. Lumida News, summarising the same testimony, reported the loan was made in two $10 million tranches, three years ago and last year, paying 1% a month, and that Jackson put his ownership at 15%.
The details emerged in Jackson's U.S. Tax Court fight with the IRS over deductions tied to low-budget film productions, when he was asked which loans made by his firm, Jackson Investment Group, had been particularly successful, Bloomberg reported. The refinery is not slated to begin production until 2029 and will process only Texas crude; Reliance Industries holds a 20-year agreement to buy fuel from it, according to Lumida's account of the testimony.
The two valuations of the same project differ sharply. The White House website lists America First Refining as the single largest investment in U.S. manufacturing and industry at $300 billion, while Jackson testified he expects it to be worth about $2 billion on going public — which would put his 15% stake at roughly $300 million, Lumida reported. Neither figure is an independent appraisal; both are claims by interested parties.
Jackson's ties to the project have become a flashpoint in the Georgia governor's race. His Democratic opponent, Keisha Lance Bottoms, has run ads attacking his role in the project and his ties to Trump, and an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll cited by Bloomberg ranks the race effectively a dead heat ahead of the Nov. 3 election. The Democratic Governors Association also attacked the arrangement in a statement on Wednesday — a partisan response, presented here as reaction, not as established fact.
Established from court testimony reported by Bloomberg: the $20 million loan at 12%, Jackson's ownership stake, and that the disclosure came in a Tax Court case about film-production deductions. Claimed and contested: the project's value — $300 billion on the White House website versus Jackson's own $2 billion public-listing expectation — and what the investment means for Georgia voters, which the two campaigns dispute.
What is solid
- Jackson loaned $20 million at 12% interest to America First Refining and holds an ownership stake; the facts emerged in his U.S. Tax Court testimony in an IRS dispute over film-production deductions — Bloomberg News/Bloomberg Law.
- America First Refining plans a new refinery at Brownsville, Texas, described as the first major new U.S. refinery in half a century, with production not expected until 2029 — Bloomberg via Lumida.
What is only claimed
- Project valuation: $300 billion as listed by the White House versus about $2 billion expected by Jackson himself at a public listing.
- Political effect: Bottoms' campaign and the Democratic Governors Association say the stake is a liability; that is campaign argument, not a finding.