Elon Musk’s Tesla Abandons California, Sets Up HQ in Texas

Elon Musk’s electric vehicle maker Tesla has announced that it is officially moving its headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas.

CNBC reports that during Tesla’s recent 2021 annual shareholder meeting, company CEO Elon Musk announced that the company’s headquarters is officially moving from Palo Alto, California to Austin, Texas. Speaking at Tesla’s vehicle assembly plant under construction just outside of Austin, Musk announced the move.

However, the firm will retain a presence in California despite the HQ move. “To be clear we will be continuing to expand our activities in California,” Musk said. “Our intention is to increase output from Fremont and Giga Nevada by 50%. If you go to our Fremont factory it’s jammed.”

Musk added: “It’s tough for people to afford houses, and people have to come in from far away….There’s a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area.”

On a Tesla earnings call in April 2020, Musk criticized California government officials calling their coronavirus health orders “fascist.” Shortly afterward, Musk himself moved out of the Los Angeles area and relocated to Austin.

Last year a number of other tech firms relocated to Texas, including Oracle and Hewlett Packard. Texas has actively begun incentivizing companies to move to the area via its Texas Economic Development Act which offers tax breaks to new facilities built in the state.

Domenic Romano, managing partner of Romano Law in New York City, commented on why many businesses are moving, stating: “From a legal perspective, there’s less of a regulatory burden in Texas. It’s a more business- and employer-friendly state in many ways. You have to jump through far fewer hoops in Texas or Florida as an employer than you do in California in terms of reporting requirements and more.”

Read more at CNBC here.

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com