Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), announced on Thursday that the electric carmaker will relocate its headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas, where it is developing a large car and battery manufacturing complex.
Tesla has joined Oracle, HP, and Toyota Motor (7203.T) in relocating their U.S. headquarters from California, where taxes and living costs are relatively high. While Silicon Valley is a hotbed for new ideas and businesses, Texas is known for its lower labor costs and less severe regulations.
“I’m excited to announce that we’re moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas,” Musk told the company’s annual meeting, held in the Texas car factory.
“This is not a matter of, sort of, Tesla leaving California,” he said, saying it plans to increase output from its main California factory and Nevada factory by 50%.
The Fremont, California factory nonetheless is “jammed” and it is tough for people to afford houses in California, he said.
Musk, a billionaire, relocated to Texas from California in December to work on Tesla’s new plant in the state and his SpaceX rocket company, which has a launchpad in the state’s southern tip.
Musk had a tumultuous relationship with California at times, threatening to relocate Tesla’s headquarters and future programs to Texas during a dispute over the shutdown of Tesla’s Fremont factory due to COVID-19, for example.
He displayed a design of what appeared to be a cowboy-style belt buckle imprinted with “Don’t Mess With T” — the T in the style of the Tesla logo — at the conference. The term is based on a long-running and well-known anti-littering program in Texas –
