Musk To Move Tesla’s Headquarters From California To Texas

On Thursday, Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said he plans to move the electric carmaker’s headquarters from Silicon Valley’s Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, where the company is building a massive car and battery manufacturing complex. 

Tesla joins Oracle, HP, and Toyota in moving its headquarters from California to Texas. While Silicon Valley is a hive of development for new ideas and companies, it also has relatively high taxes and high living costs. Texas, on the other hand, is known for cheaper labour and its less strict regulations. 

However, “this is not a matter of, sort of, Tesla leaving California,” Musk said. The company plans to increase output from its main California factory and Nevada factory by 50%. Nonetheless, the California factory is “jammed” and it is tough for people to afford houses in California, Musk said.

Tesla’s billionaire co-founder and CEO moved to Texas from California himself back in December 2020 to focus on the company’s new plant as well as his SpaceX rocket company, which has a launch site in the southern tip of the Lone Star State. 

At times, Musk has had a rocky relationship with California and has previously threatened to relocate Tesla’s headquarters and future programmes to Texas during an argument over the closure of Tesla’s factory due to coronavirus restrictions.