Tesla is moving its headquarters from California to Austin, Texas, Elon Musk said at the 2021 annual meeting of stockholders held virtually in the new Austin Gigafactory.
"I'm excited to announce that we're moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas," Tesla's chief executive said.
Tesla is the latest major company moving headquarters out of California, which has high taxes and high living costs, to Texas, which has less overbearing regulations and cheaper labor costs.
Musk himself moved to Texas from California in December 2020, saying that California has been "taking for granted" its position as a hotbed for tech talent. Musk is also focused on working on his SpaceX company, which has a launch site in south Texas known as Starbase.
Last year during the lockdowns in the United States, Tesla and the state of California were in a bitter dispute over the reopening of the Fremont factory during the lockdown. Tesla reopened its factory in violation of a shutdown order issued by the health authorities of Alameda County, and Musk threatened to move Tesla's headquarters out of California to Texas or Nevada.
Despite moving Tesla's headquarters to Texas, the electric vehicle (EV) maker is not "leaving" California, where it plans to significantly increase production in its Fremont factory.
However, the Fremont Gigafactory is "jammed" and not all potential employers and contractors can afford housing in California, Musk said.
After news broke that Tesla is moving to Texas, Austin mayor Steve Adler tweeted "We welcome Tesla home! It's a tech company that creates the clean-manufacturing, middle-skill jobs Austin needs. We're one of the safest big cities, with a strong innovative, entrepreneurial, environmentally-focused culture."
"This is a major strategic move for Tesla that makes a ton of sense," said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, as carried by Austin American-Statesman. "The tea leaves were there for Tesla to make this move and it's a huge feather in the cap for Austin," Ives added.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More
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