Tesla moves headquarters from California to Austin, Texas

Early last year, we wrote about tech companies moving out of California to Austin, Texas due to the state’s lockdown rules and poor handling of the stay-at-home order. Then in April 2020 during an earnings call, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the company headquarters ‘will move to Texas or Nevada immediately’ after California county health official said the Tesla factory couldn’t reopen. The day has finally arrived.

Today, Tesla said it is moving its headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas. Musk made the announcement at the company’s shareholder meeting on Thursday. “To be clear we will be continuing to expand our activities in California,” Musk said.

“Our intention is to increase output from Fremont and Giga Nevada by 50%. If you go to our Fremont factory it’s jammed.” Musk later explained that “it’s tough for people to afford houses, and people have to come in from far away….There’s a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area.”

Meanwhile, Tesla said it plans to increase production in its California plant regardless of the headquarters move. The shareholder meeting took place at Tesla’s vehicle assembly plant under construction outside of Austin on a property that borders the Colorado River, near the city’s airport.

Tesla is not the only company moving from California to Texas. In December 2020,  Oracle joined a list of tech companies that relocated to Austin, Texas. The database giant announced it was moving its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas. Since then, at least a dozen other tech companies have either left or planning to leave the state.

In a statement, Oracle spokesperson said, “Oracle is implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas. We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work.”