Tesla, founded in Silicon Valley in the early 2000s, is relocating its headquarters to Texas, where billionaire CEO Elon Musk already resides, while the company will continue to manufacture automobiles in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Musk made the revelation at Tesla's almost finished Texas Gigafactory in Austin on Thursday evening at the company's annual shareholders meeting. Although the relocation isn't unexpected, he didn't say when the existing Palo Alto headquarters might close.
"To be clear," Musk added, "we will continue to increase our efforts in California." "This isn't about Tesla abandoning California. Instead, our goal is to raise Fremont's and a Nevada gig's output by 50 percent."
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Tesla in California
Although California remains Tesla'slargest market and source of vehicle production in the United States, Musk has become increasingly critical of the state in recent years, most notably after health officials in Alameda County, where the company's Fremont factory is located, imposed restrictions to protect worker safety and health during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. As a result, Musk, whose libertarian beliefs have evolved, relocated to Austin in 2020.
After Musk threatened to leave, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Tesla owner, told CNBC in a May 2020 interview that he wasn't "worried about Elon departing anytime soon."
On the other hand, Musk has grown increasingly irritated by California's stringent regulations while warming to the appeal of Texas, which is cheaper and less controlled. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott stated in September that the billionaire entrepreneur "likes the social policies" in the state after the state approved stringent abortion legislation, as well as stricter voting restrictions and looser gun controls.
"California is the cradle of invention, the world's fifth-largest economy, and home to the world's biggest ideas and companies-that success is not due to, but due to, our progressive policies," said Erin Mellon a spokesman for Newsom.
"We defend our employees, public health, and women's freedom to choose." "These are California's core principles, and we'll keep generating more employment than any other state, outperforming the national recovery and keeping the lowest COVID-19 case rates in the country," she added.
Relocating Headquarters
Tesla is the first manufacturer to relocate its headquarters in the state since Toyota revealed intentions to relocate its North American headquarters from suburban Los Angeles to suburban Dallas. Lucid Motors, Fisker Inc., and Rivian are all electric car companies located in California.
"We believe this was a smart strategic move for Tesla as the company is aggressively building out its Austin footprint and over time with Cybertruck and more Model 3/Y production Musk is now doubling down on its Texas footprint with capacity ramping into 2022," Wedbush Securities equity analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a research note. "While Fremont will remain important for Tesla in terms of Model 3 manufacturing, we believe this is the first step toward Tesla making Austin its domestic and worldwide core site over the next decade, with its recent displeasure with California regulators likely hastening this shift."
Need More Space
The company's need for more space, high house costs in the Bay Area, and long commutes for workers were among the concerns Musk mentioned.
"We're in Austin, and our plant is just five minutes from the airport and fifteen minutes from downtown," Musk explained. "Here on the Colorado River, we're going to construct an ecological paradise. It's going to be fantastic."
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