Tesla to move headquarters to Texas

It is a decision with a high symbolic content. Tesla boss Elon Musk announced Thursday, October 7 that the headquarters of the electric vehicle maker, currently based in Palo Alto, Calif., Will be moved to Austin, Texas, where the group is currently building a new plant.

“I am happy to announce that we will be moving our headquarters to Austin”Elon Musk said at Tesla’s annual general meeting of shareholders. He himself personally left the West Coast in 2020 and has, on several occasions, strongly criticized the Californian authorities since the start of the pandemic for health rules that he deemed too strict.

That doesn’t mean Tesla is completely leaving the West Coast, the billionaire added right away. “To be clear, we will continue to expand our activities in California”, notably by increasing production at the Fremont plant, he stressed.

But, the entrepreneur also noted, “We cannot grow endlessly in San Francisco Bay”, where the density is high, the cost of living high and traffic often difficult. While in Austin, the factory is installed “Five minutes from the airport and fifteen minutes from the city center”.

A conservative state

Elon Musk justified his personal move last year by the need to be as close as possible to the two projects which then occupied most of his time: the development of rockets by his space company SpaceX in the south of the state and the construction of an automobile plant by Tesla near Austin.

By announcing Thursday the installation of Tesla in Texas, Elon Musk takes a bit of the opposite view of several large American companies, which recently publicly criticized this state following the adoption of a law particularly restrictive on abortion. The IT giant Salesforce, for example, offered its help to employees who would like to leave Texas.