The news media is full of coverage about controversial land deals in Louisiana involving giant tech companies. But why has there been no scrutiny of the land deal involving SpaceX, which saw the state sell 125,000 acres of land for $800 an acre or $100 million?

Everyone knows that the real value of land is not its appraised value but what an eager buyer is willing to pay for it. Clearly, Elon Musk and SpaceX were desperate to buy Louisiana’s land because, as they have said numerous times, it was the perfect site for their spaceport.

SpaceX was never going to go to Florida, Tennessee or Alabama as Gov. Jeff Landry insinuated. It always wanted Louisiana. There is no evidence of any sort that SpaceX was seriously considering another site. So, what was it willing to pay for the land?

SpaceX is valued at more than $2 trillion, and Elon Musk alone is worth nearly a trillion; $100 million is nothing to them. Musk would have paid whatever the state demanded. Would they have walked away from the deal if the state had demanded $500 million or more for our land? No.

Louisiana had a chance to have both the jobs and economic development a spaceport promises and negotiate a much larger, future-altering payment for our land. Instead, Landry and Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Susan Bourgeois sold our land to the world’s richest man for chump change.

We were hosed, but there is no oversight of the deal by the Legislature, good government groups or the press. SpaceX and Landry made sure no one would have the information necessary to investigate by requiring anyone who knew anything to sign nondisclosure agreements before, when and after the deal was negotiated.