Brazos County Approves 4-0 Transfer of $700M RELLIS Data Center Tax Abatement to ThisWay Global After Abbott Audit Order

Brazos County commissioners voted 4-0 on August 18, 2026, with one commissioner absent, to transfer the tax abatement agreement tied to the $700 million data center at the Texas A&M RELLIS Campus to a new owner, ThisWay Global, Inc. The new agreement brings the land and half of the $700 million investment onto the tax rolls. The vote came two weeks after commissioners took no action on the proposed abatement on August 4 — a tabling that landed one day after Governor Greg Abbott ordered a mandatory audit of all data centers seeking to connect to the Texas grid, with ERCOT pausing its interconnection process in response. Abbott’s order requires disclosure of all tax incentives and abatements received or expected from state and local governments, a requirement that applies directly to the RELLIS project, which is roughly four years behind schedule.

The sequence shows a disclosure requirement working as leverage without anyone invoking it as such. Abbott’s audit did not block the RELLIS abatement; it changed what the county had to know before granting one, and the abatement that emerged two weeks later put half the investment back on the tax rolls rather than shielding it. That is the difference between a moratorium, which stops projects, and a transparency mandate, which alters the terms on which they proceed — and it is the same lever the Virginia SCC pulled on cost allocation weeks earlier (2026-07-31–virginia-scc-orders-dominion-shift-transmission-costs-to-data-centers). The Abbott directive follows his June instruction to PUCT and ERCOT on data center infrastructure costs (2026-06-10–abbott-directive-puct-ercot-data-center-infrastructure-costs) and his August freeze on Texas grid connections (2026-08-03–abbott-freezes-texas-data-center-grid-connections-ercot-audit); Bell County tabled an abatement repeal in the same window (2026-08-17–bell-county-tx-tables-data-center-abatement-repeal-blackburn-leverage-sept-8-vote).