EXIM backs JetZero Greensboro plant with up to $3 billion financing
EXIM put up to $3 billion on the table for JetZero’s Greensboro factory, but the money is still only a letter of interest as the 14,500-job plan moves ahead.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank put up to $3 billion of financing behind JetZero’s planned manufacturing plant at Piedmont Triad International Airport, giving Greensboro one of the biggest industrial bets tied to the city in years. The bank said the support is meant for a new plant in Greensboro under its Make More in America Initiative, but the letter of interest is still a preliminary step rather than final financing.
EXIM said Chairman J. Jovanovic and JetZero CEO Tom O’Leary signed the letter at FIAFarnborough. That matters because the deal is not yet the same thing as a finished loan package, a construction start or a hiring wave. Those steps still depend on JetZero moving from financing talks to groundbreakings, building out the site and then staffing the operation.
JetZero first unveiled the North Carolina project on June 12, 2025, when Gov. Josh Stein said the company would invest more than $4.7 billion in Greensboro. State officials said the project would create 14,500 jobs in Guilford County and called it the largest job commitment in North Carolina history. The site is slated for PTI, putting the region’s airport, road network and industrial base at the center of the company’s first U.S. factory.
JetZero says the Greensboro plant will be its first commercial airplane manufacturing facility and will produce the Z4, an all-wing aircraft designed to carry 250 passengers about 5,000 nautical miles. The company says the plane could be up to 50% more fuel efficient and that the factory will operate as a smart plant using digital tools and artificial intelligence. JetZero has also said the project is intended to lower fuel burn and carbon emissions, positioning Greensboro as the launch point for a new kind of aircraft manufacturing.
The project has already drawn support from the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and North Carolina A&T State University, which has said it will help meet workforce needs tied to the announcement. JetZero’s company materials say it raised about $175 million in Series B financing led by B Capital, giving the company capital as it pushes ahead with the Greensboro buildout. For Guilford County, the real test now is whether the financing, construction and training pipelines can move fast enough to turn the promise of 14,500 jobs into paychecks on the ground.
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