Mississippi Development Authority Executive Director Bill Cork told Greenville Rotarians this week that Mississippi is “finally playing offense” in the competition for jobs and capital, pointing to record industrial recruitment, new site development money and a growing push into data centers and international trade.
Cork said Mississippi has landed about $66 billion in capital investment over the past six years, including Aluminum Dynamics’ nearly $3 billion mill that now employs about 700 people. He noted that even janitorial workers there earn more than $90,000 a year and that all employees receive up to 40 years of paid tuition at any public four-year university in the country. Those kinds of benefits, he said, reflect Gov. Tate Reeves’ directive in 2020 to recruit projects that both expand local tax bases and create high-skill, high-wage jobs so families can support themselves without depending on government.
Cork said Mississippi has secured the six largest projects in state history during his tenure, including the recently announced XAI artificial intelligence data center in Southaven and major Amazon Web Services facilities in Madison County and near Byram. He described negotiations with Elon Musk’s XAI as unlike any he had seen, saying state and company officials moved from initial contact to a fully approved incentive package in just two weeks because Musk wanted a state that could match his speed. “Speed is the new incentive,” Cork said, arguing that getting companies “from standing on dirt to making money” faster now matters more than cash.
Cork said an October 2020 session in Asheville, North Carolina, where site-selection consultants bluntly listed Mississippi’s shortcomings, drove many of the changes now underway at MDA. Consultants told Reeves and his team the state lacked shovel-ready industrial sites, a coherent workforce training brand, easy-to-use incentives and the sophistication to negotiate with large corporate clients. In response, Cork said, MDA launched an aggressive site development grant program, helped stand up the Accelerate Mississippi workforce office, simplified incentives into the new Influx flexible tax credit and gave Reeves’ personal cellphone number to major prospects to signal direct gubernatorial support.
Since then, MDA has committed more than $143 million in state site development grants, leveraging roughly $238 million in total investment to improve 84 industrial sites in 48 counties. Cork contrasted that with Louisiana’s new program, which he said is working on 19 sites, and argued Mississippi is “ahead of our neighboring states for the first time ever.” Nearly 60 of Mississippi’s 82 counties have landed at least one project in the past six years, he said, a distribution he called “unprecedented” after years when much of the map remained blank.
Cork acknowledged that business leaders often ask, “What are you bringing to the Delta?” but said the region is beginning to share in the growth, particularly through small-business lending and infrastructure projects. MDA’s small-business loan guarantee program has backed 96 loans totaling about $58 million statewide, many of them in Delta farm and timber counties for poultry houses and other agriculture-related ventures. The agency also has processed about $150 million in community development block grants for water, sewer, road and sidewalk work since 2020, though counties that fail audits remain ineligible for federal funds.
Greenville-Washington County Economic Development Center Executive Director Justin Burch told Rotarians that local leaders must invest more heavily in industrial sites and basic appearance if they want a bigger share of MDA’s projects. He said Washington County’s annual site development funding has risen from $75,000 to $800,000, and Greenville’s from $75,000 to $250,000, but argued that spending hundreds of thousands on underused parks and pools while underinvesting in industrial property sends the wrong signal. “Capitalism and economic development are number one and number two in solving poverty,” he said, calling for tougher enforcement on boarded-up downtown buildings and proposing a vacant-building tax to improve the “eye test” for prospects.
Responding to a question about whether Delta communities can attract data centers like those going to Madison and DeSoto counties, Cork said the clustering around Jackson reflects the intersection of the Grand Gulf nuclear plant’s 500-kilovolt transmission line and major north-south and east-west fiber routes. Still, he said, running fiber from the Delta to Interstate 55 “doesn’t cost that much compared to the billions” data center operators spend, and the region is already seeing interest tied to solar farms, battery projects and revamped merchant plants such as the rehabilitated Greenville generating station.
Cork said MDA requires large data center projects to provide their own power infrastructure and rely on gray-water recycling rather than potable water. He said investor-owned utilities such as Entergy would need approval from the Public Service Commission before raising rates to serve those facilities and that no such rate case is pending or planned. He also promoted pending legislation that would allow MDA to use site development dollars for off-site electric and gas infrastructure and create a $100 million, three-year program to speed up energy projects, arguing Mississippi must compete with Alabama, which recently approved a $1 billion bond issue for similar work.
Cork reminded Rotarians that MDA’s work extends beyond industrial recruitment to international trade promotion, tourism and small-business support. He said Mississippi companies exported goods worth $14.22 billion in 2025 to 186 foreign markets, and that MDA’s trade office directly helped smaller firms generate about $58 million in sales last year. The state’s top export categories include mineral fuels, nuclear reactors and machinery, optical and medical instruments, electrical equipment, cotton, wood pulp and vehicles, a mix Cork said often surprises outsiders who still picture Mississippi as strictly agricultural.
MDA contracts with seven overseas trade offices across the Pacific Rim and in India to help Mississippi businesses navigate customs, protocols and buyer introductions, Cork said, adding that even very small rural enterprises can now sell globally. He pointed to his wife’s ceramic pottery business, which is working with MDA to pursue opportunities on Mercado Libre, the Latin American e-commerce platform sometimes likened to “Amazon for Latin America.” Federal “Biden bucks” from pandemic-era programs are funding about $91 million in new initiatives for startups, including the Mississippi Connect program, which pays for consultants to help entrepreneurs write business plans, conduct market research and file patents or trademarks.
Tourism remains another major pillar for MDA, Cork said, even as some lawmakers push to spin it into a separate state agency. He argued that Visit Mississippi has produced record tourism numbers and one of the fastest post-COVID recoveries in the country without growing government, noting that he has cut MDA’s workforce from nearly 300 employees to about 160 while “doing ten times the production.” Recent tourism promotion has included a Mississippi float in the Tournament of Roses Parade, a “Good Morning America” feature and a new podcast and “Great Mississippi Nature Trail” marketing campaign, as well as preparations for a large immersive Mississippi exhibit on the National Mall during this summer’s America 250 celebration in Washington.
As the program closed, Cork encouraged Greenville leaders to “keep at it,” saying MDA stands ready to back communities that organize around site readiness, workforce and honest self-assessment. “This isn’t about politics,” he said. “We’re willing to help local communities that will help themselves and run hard” for a place on Mississippi’s expanding economic development map.
