Nashville’s mayor reportedly learned of the HQ2 decision on Twitter

Nashville Mayor David Briley.
Mark Humphrey/AP

• Amazon announced Tuesday it would
  split its new HQ2 between two locations: New York City and
  northern Virginia. 
• The online retailer also announced plans to build an
  “Operations Center of Excellence” in Nashville, Tennessee — a
  move Nashville’s mayor said he learned about through a tweet,
  according to the Wall Street
  Journal.
• Other frontrunners in the bidding contest to win over
  Amazon reportedly felt snubbed after the retailer surprised
  them with its decision.

The mayor of Nashville, Tennessee, said he learned about
Amazon’s decision to grant his city a consolation prize in its
headquarters race the same way most other people did — through
Twitter.

Amazon announced Tuesday the conclusion of its HQ2 race, in
which the massive online retailer searched for a location for its
second headquarters. Instead of one location, Amazon decided to

split the development project between New York City and northern
Virginia.

Additionally, the company plans to build an “Operations
Center of Excellence” in Nashville, Tennessee, as a consolation
prize. The Nashville location will handle “customer fulfillment,
customer service, transportation, and supply chain,” according to
Amazon. 

Read more:

Amazon just announced its 2 new HQ2 locations — but it’s also
making a big investment in a 3rd city.

However, Nashville mayor David Briley said he didn’t know
about this decision until Tuesday, when he saw the news on
Twitter,
according to the Wall Street Journal. Amazon said the mayor’s
office was notified on Monday. 

Other cities felt snubbed by Amazon, the Journal reports,
as Amazon mostly kept quiet during the year-long search for a
second headquarters, while hundreds of cities tried to win the
retailer over with promised tax breaks and
other incentives. According to
the Journal, the mayor of Dallas, Texas, thought the city was
still a frontrunner in the race up until the decision was
announced Tuesday. 

More than 200 cities competed to host Amazon’s new
headquarters, which initially promised 50,000 new jobs and a $5
billion investment in the new home city. That will now be split
between Long Island City, Queens, and
National Landing,
Virginia.