If it weren't Bezos I'd say it were intended as an art piece to demonstrate how bad the problem is, even between states inside a single country. That said, Virginia ended up paying about $27k per job generated while the second office in NYC was given about $75k per job generated.

So a taxpayer subsidy from everyone in the region in order to produce 25,000 jobs at the above prices. Worth it? Not really sure, it seems to me like Virginia might end up fairly well off but I have a harder time imagining that creating another 25,000 jobs in NYC is worth $75k a piece to the city given that they are already out of housing. Kind of seems like it might be better put into other things on balance.

Pitching it all as a public auction really accentuates the point that this is a race to the bottom with competition between people that should instead be natural allies. It would be brilliant if it were an intentional commentary on how much harm we are doing to ourselves by letting companies pit entire states against each other for profit.