Elon Musk Says He’s Moving X and SpaceX Headquarters to Texas
The tech entrepreneur cited California’s new transgender rights laws to be “the final straw” for exile from the state.
By Paresh Dave
Jul 16, 2024 06:24 PM
Elon Musk said he is moving more of his business empire to Texas. Musk-run X and SpaceX will shift their corporate headquarters to the Lone Star State from California, he wrote in a series of posts on X on Tuesday. He didn’t provide a timeline for the move, but he was clear about his rationale.
“This is the final straw,” Musk stated in an article about a new California law that guarantees individuals with transgender identities from being harassed by kids. “Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.” Musk added the following “X HQ will move to Austin” from San Francisco and that he’s “had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building.”
Relocations to the headquarter can begin as a symbol, but they could be extremely significant for states like California in the event that staff members relocate because their budgets depend on the taxation of high-flying tech employees.
California’s laws have long attracted the anger of Musk. Musk said in 2020 that he’d personally moved to Texas to could help him avoid California’s high tax rates. In the following year, Tesla relocated its office from San Francisco to Austin out of Silicon Valley over frustrations about the local restrictions on pandemics that he claimed were affecting operations. “Frankly, this is the final straw,” Musk tweets in the midst of his tweet. Musk’s tunnel-digging business Boring Company ditched California for Texas in 2022.
The latest law which has earned Musk’s ire was enacted on Tuesday by California governor Gavin Newsom. It prohibits schools from having to require staff to divulge the student’s gender identity or gender expression sexual preference without permission from the student. The law goes over the policies adopted from local boards of education which required teachers to inform parents when their children displayed indications of being transgender.
“I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children,” Musk wrote in a blog posts from Tuesday.
Newsom refused to make an answer to WIRED however, his office made clear that California law requires parental consent to change their names. He also said parents are also guaranteed access to their education documents.
The issue of parental rights is a matter of personal choice for Musk. In the past, a biography of Musk written by Walter Isaacson disclosed Musk’s billionaire status. blammed the school he attended as his eldest child for providing her with certain values that caused her to change into a female and exclusion of him from her world.
When Musk purchased Twitter at the end of 2022 the company began permitting users to use transgender individuals’ former names, also known as deadnames. According to some activists, he’s reduced the need to police anti-LGBTQ content.
A spokesperson from GLAAD which promotes LGBT rights says it’s not unexpected to witness an individual “with a long history of hateful rhetoric” make use of the law’s new provisions to promote controversial opinions. “The state of California’s support for transgender and nonbinary students does not harm students or parents, but creates a model for all leaders in education to ensure LGBTQ student safety and privacy,” The spokesperson, who sought anonymity in order to protect themselves from the possibility of harassment.
X, SpaceX, and Newsom have not yet responded to inquiries for comment. Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in a blog post on X was elated by the relocation of SpaceX from Texas to Texas.
Other Musk businesses remain in California. His OpenAI competitor xAI is located within his home in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Burlingame. Brain implant company Neuralink is located across from the Bay in Fremont. Although Tesla has relocated its headquarters in Texas, Musk has kept important production operations at Fremont and announced last year an engineering base for the electric car producer situated in Palo Alto.
Update 7/16/24 at 7:48 pm ET This report has been added with comments by GLAAD as well as Gavin Newsom’s Office.