Doña Ana County commissioners voted 4-0 on Tuesday to authorize a second notice of breach against the developers behind Project Jupiter, the massive data center complex in Santa Teresa, after the companies missed an Oct. 31 deadline to turn in a complete jobs report. It is the second time this year that county officials say required jobs data tied to the project's industrial revenue bonds has not arrived on time.
According to the Albuquerque Journal, a county spokesperson said the project had missed its Oct. 31 report deadline and had not provided a complete jobs report for the third quarter. The spokesperson said this is the second time in 2026 that jobs data related to Project Jupiter was not received by the deadline established by the bonds. Developers STACK Infrastructure, Oracle and Bloom Energy had already failed to submit job-hire reports due in January and April, the county said earlier this year, according to a separate Albuquerque Journal report.
STACK Infrastructure has pushed back on the county's account. The company said it had submitted the job numbers to the county, and a STACK spokesperson told the newspaper, “These numbers have been submitted to the county.” The company reported more than 5,000 workers onsite as of October, including 1,652 New Mexico residents and 756 Doña Ana County residents, though Searchlight New Mexico's reporting puts the October total at 5,000 workers rather than describing it as more than that figure.
A Pattern of Missed Deadlines
This is not the first time Project Jupiter's paperwork has lagged behind schedule. The project's first jobs report was posted to the county website in August, but was itself overdue and omitted demographic information about construction workers, per Searchlight New Mexico's reporting. Before Tuesday's vote, developers had submitted only one earlier jobs report to the county.
The workforce numbers have also shifted dramatically over the course of the year. The Santa Fe New Mexican reported that Oracle identified 189 Doña Ana County residents and 404 New Mexico residents out of 2,105 construction workers at the site as of June 30 — a fraction of the headcount STACK later reported for October, though the two counts come from different companies and different points in the project's buildout, as detailed in The Santa Fe New Mexican.
What the Community Benefits Agreement Requires
Project Jupiter's executed Community Benefits Agreement with the county commits the project to at least 750 permanent full-time jobs, and it states the project expects to create at least 2,500 construction jobs onsite during its anticipated build period. The agreement also lays out the county's remedies if developers fall short: it states that the county's sole and exclusive remedy is the applicable rights and remedies under the companies' lease agreements, subject to notice and cure rights, with the agreement's text allowing for possible lease termination.
Violations of the county's deal with Project Jupiter could trigger termination of the industrial revenue bond agreement. The county approved a $165 billion IRB issue in September 2025, a figure representing expected investment over the project's lifetime that does not obligate public funds. Doña Ana County Commission Chair Manny Sanchez said the job report is an operational requirement and the companies know when to submit it. Sanchez also said he had heard the delay resulted from a discrepancy between job statistics provided to the county and those submitted to the state, though he framed that as something he had heard rather than a confirmed explanation.
Why the County Is Building a Paper Trail
Sanchez said the breach notice creates a paper trail in case the county decides to penalize developers, and he said the county wants to hold developers accountable to the industrial revenue bond requirements. He added that the county could work with the state to withhold some developer tax breaks until compliance if the developers do not remedy the breach.
Tuesday's vote followed an executive session, after which commissioners approved the violation letter unanimously, according to the seed facts underlying this report. The letter marks the county's second notification to developers this year about a possible bond-agreement breach tied to jobs reporting — separate from an earlier dispute over the project's power supply.
A Separate Fight Over Power
Late last month, Doña Ana County commissioners unanimously authorized county managers and legal staff to notify Project Jupiter entities of a different potential breach, this one tied to the project's plans to connect to the El Paso Electric grid for backup power, according to KRWG Public Media. County officials sent Project Jupiter companies a letter about those grid-connection plans, arguing they ran counter to the project's commitment to be self-powered through an on-site micro-grid not connected to the broader grid. County officials said the grid-connection proposal amounted to a potential breach because no agreement with El Paso Electric had been signed at the time.
