Relocation: Elon Musk Announces Plans to Move X and SpaceX Headquarters to Texas

Photograph by Marc Piasecki for Getty Images

According to Elon Musk, he plans to relocate a larger portion of his business ventures to Texas. In a series of tweets on X, he announced that both X and SpaceX, companies owned by Musk, will be moving their corporate headquarters from California to the Lone Star State. Although he did not specify a timeline for the move, his reasoning for the decision was made clear.

Musk expressed his frustration with a new California law aimed at safeguarding the confidentiality of transgender minors by stating, "This is the last straw." He further explained that SpaceX's headquarters will now be relocated from Hawthorne, California to Starbase, Texas due to this law and others that have continuously targeted families and corporations. Additionally, he announced that the X headquarters will also be moving from San Francisco to Austin. Musk also mentioned that he is tired of having to navigate through groups of violent drug users just to access the building.

The relocation of headquarters may initially be seen as symbolic, but it can have significant consequences for states like California if their high-flying tech workers move and impact their budget, which heavily depends on taxes from these individuals.

Musk has had a long-standing dislike for California's regulations. In 2020, he announced that he had personally relocated to Texas in order to avoid the state's high taxes. The following year, he decided to move Tesla's headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin due to frustration with local pandemic restrictions, which were allegedly causing problems for the company's operations. He took to Twitter and stated, "This is the last straw," in reference to his decision. In 2022, Musk's Boring Company, which is responsible for tunnel-digging, also made the move from California to Texas.

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, signed into law on Monday a new measure that has drawn criticism from Musk. The law prohibits schools from mandating staff to reveal a student's gender identity, gender expression, or sexual orientation without the student's consent. This legislation supersedes policies implemented by local school boards that had mandated educators to inform parents if their child exhibited signs of being transgender.

In his series of posts on Tuesday, Musk stated that he had previously informed Governor Newsom about a year ago that enacting laws of this kind would result in families and businesses relocating from California in order to safeguard their children.

Although WIRED reached out for a comment, Newsom did not respond. However, his office emphasized that according to California law, parental consent is still necessary for children to change their names and parents have the right to access their education records.

Musk holds a personal connection to the topic of parental rights. In the previous year, a book about Musk by Walter Isaacson exposed that the wealthy individual held the school attended by his eldest child responsible for introducing them to certain beliefs, resulting in their decision to transition to a female identity and cutting off communication with Musk.

In 2022, Musk acquired Twitter and subsequently implemented a policy that permitted the posting of transgender individuals' previous names, also referred to as deadnames. This move has been criticized by activists who claim that it has resulted in a more lenient approach towards monitoring anti-LGBTQ content.

According to an anonymous spokesperson from GLAAD, an organization that supports transgender rights, it was not unexpected to witness an individual with a well-documented record of discriminatory language exploit the recently passed law to promote controversial ideas. The spokesperson further states that the state of California's endorsement of transgender and nonbinary students does not negatively impact students or their parents, but instead sets an example for all educational leaders to prioritize the safety and privacy of LGBTQ students. The spokesperson chose to remain anonymous to avoid potential harassment.

X, SpaceX, and Newsom have yet to reply to comment requests. In a post on X, Texas governor Greg Abbott expressed support for SpaceX's decision to relocate to Texas.

Despite relocating Tesla's headquarters to Texas, Musk's other companies are still located in California. His OpenAI competitor xAI is situated in Burlingame, a city in the San Francisco Bay Area. Fremont, located across the bay, is home to Neuralink, a brain implant startup. Additionally, Tesla has maintained substantial manufacturing operations in Fremont and revealed plans for an engineering headquarters in Palo Alto last year.

The story has been revised on 7/16/24 at 7:48pm ET to incorporate a statement from GLAAD and Gavin Newsom's office.

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