A collaborative environment enables progress in the Magnolia State.
Whether it’s infrastructure, permitting, site development, incentives, workforce programs, energy resources or government support, everything works together in Mississippi to advance the economic growth agenda of Gov. Tate Reeves and the Mississippi Development Authority.
If you want to know how the state has landed more than $85 billion in capital investment since 2020, the answer can be summed up in a nutshell: Mississippi leaders look for a reason to say “yes” to your project.
That doesn’t mean they will rubber-stamp it; and it doesn’t mean that your venture is guaranteed to succeed. But it does mean that Mississippi will not erect any unnecessary barriers to your project or your opportunity to be successful.
During a recent talk at the Stennis Capitol Press Forum in Jackson, MDA Executive Director Bill Cork said that after experiencing a record-breaking year for economic development in 2025, Mississippi is on pace to surpass that performance in 2026.
“We will break the 2025 record this year with what we already have in the pipeline,” Cork noted at the event in the state capital. “We will announce another 2,000-job project within the next 60 days. It’s just an amazing run, and there is no end in sight.”
Cork says Mississippi wins by delivering speed to market. When xAI — an artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk in 2023 — announced on January 8 of this year that it would invest $20 billion to build a large data center complex in Southaven, the ability to quickly get to “yes” sealed the deal.
When the project in North Mississippi just across the state line from Memphis was announced, Musk commented on the speed with which the project was approved. The entire xAI data center deal took only about two weeks to go from pitch to signature.
Inside Salad Days new 68,000-sq.-ft. greenhouse facility in Flora.
Photo courtesy of Trident Technical College
“xAI is scaling at an immeasurable pace,” xAI CEO Musk said. “We are building our third massive data center in the greater Memphis area. MACROHARDRR pushes our Colossus training compute to ~2GW – by far the most powerful AI system on earth. This is insane execution speed by xAI and the state of Mississippi. We are grateful to Governor Reeves for his support of building xAI at warp speed.”
Cork noted that “our focus on speed, certainty and readiness allows companies to move quickly and with confidence, while also enabling Mississippi to compete for capital-intensive, advanced technology projects like xAI. These investments bring new, high-quality jobs to the people of Mississippi and place our state at the center of the ‘Digital Delta.’ ”
More big deals are coming, Cork added. At the February event in Jackson, Cork said that MDA had more than $90 billion in capital investment and 35,000 jobs in the pipeline with more than 140 projects in the works.
State Delivered Collaboration to Amazon
For another perspective on Mississippi’s business climate, listen to Haley Fisackerly, president and CEO of Entergy Mississippi, the state’s largest electric utility. Fisackerly and his team at Entergy courted Amazon for years and played a leading role in winning the record-breaking Amazon Web Services data center investments in Madison and Warren counties — projects that on April 9 of this year increased to $25 billion in cumulative investment. In a previous interview, he told Site Selection magazine that an often-overlooked aspect of Mississippi helped swing the pendulum in the state’s favor: collaboration that occurs at all levels of government.
“The Legislature and the governor and the Mississippi Public Utilities Commission all came together and put their political differences aside,” said Fisackerly. “They realized that this was a generational opportunity for Mississippi.”
He noted that “economic development is a team sport here. This is a state that passed legislation unanimously in six hours to bring this project. That says a lot. You must have strong stakeholder engagement strategies to make a deal like this happen. Today, people don’t slow down enough to listen and to learn. We sat back and watched and listened.”
What Fisackerly said is often repeated by others around the state. When I interviewed the local economic developers who worked on the AWS projects in Madison and Warren counties, they echoed the main points of the Entergy CEO.
“Our focus on speed, certainty and readiness allows companies to move quickly and with confidence, while also enabling Mississippi to compete for capital-intensive, advanced technology projects like xAI.”
— Bill Cork, Executive Director, Mississippi Development Authority
Joey Deason, executive director of Madison County Economic Development Authority, says Salad Days Produce cut the ribbon to open its new 68,000-sq.-ft. greenhouse facility in Flora in March after an expedited process. Many entities came together to make this $25 million indoor hydroponic farm happen. Among them were the City of Flora, Madison County EDA, Mississippi Land Water and Timber Board, MDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture and Entergy Solutions.
“Instead of importing lettuce and greens, we are now able to produce enough here in our community because of this new greenhouse,” says Deason. “Whether you are an Amazon or a Salad Days, we will take care of you the same.”
Being Small is a Big Advantage
Pablo Diaz, president and CEO of the Vicksburg-Warren Economic Development Partnership, says that the emphasis in Mississippi is on delivering speed to market. “You can see that being replicated in other communities around the state because of how good of a team we can be. That is why this is paying off. Being small is an advantage. That goes back to our ability to be effective and efficient. You can pick up the phone and reach the governor here. You can’t do that just anywhere in the U.S.”
Because of the success of AWS, Meta, xAI, Compass and other large investors, “companies now realize how fast we can get things done in Mississippi,” says Diaz. “We can provide solutions very fast. We want to take you from spending money to making money as fast as possible.”
He cites Ergon Refining, which decided last year to expand its operations in Vicksburg. The specialty naphthenic product manufacturer will spend $400 million and create 20 new jobs in the community, he says.
“We saw $6 billion in capex in Warren County in 2025,” says Diaz. “We are pursuing a steel mill and an aluminum mill. We want to bring that to our 1,200-acre mega-site in Vicksburg. We are a port city; and we are very proud to be on the Mississippi River. That creates amazing synergy for industry. You can get to ports of New Orleans, Baton Rouge, St. Louis and Mexico from here. A big portion of our economy is tied to that.”
Collaboration makes this possible, he says. “We have a tradition of city and county government working closely together on one mission,” says Diaz. “We acquired all of the property and designed the construction phases and then acquired all of the necessary industrial permits to create the megasite. You don’t accomplish all of that in a short period of time if everyone is not aligned. We have great sites with great infrastructure around them. We have gas, power, water, sewer and rail. We have everything that large industrial customers are looking to find.”
