Robert Brown|Elon Musk says X, SpaceX headquarters will relocate to Texas from California

Elon Musk's Texas move announcement draws mixed responses from California leaders

Tech mogul Elon Musk announced Tuesday afternoon that he would be moving the headquarters of both his social media company X and SpaceX to Texas in response to a new California law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Musk made the announcement in a pair of posts to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter at around 12:13 p.m. and 12:30 p.m., saying that SpaceX would be moving its headquarters from Hawthorne to Starbase, Texas, while X would relocate its headquarters from San Francisco to the tech hub of Austin.

This is the final straw.

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. https://t.co/cpWUDgBWFe

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024

And 𝕏 HQ will move to Austin https://t.co/LUDfLEsztj

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024

"Have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building," Musk added in a separate post, apparently referring to issues in the neighborhood surrounding the X headquarters in the city's mid-Market Street area.

Musk said the "final straw" in his decision was a new California law that bans school districts from passing policies requiring schools to notify parents if their child asks to change their gender identification. 

"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 another post on X.  

The posts by Musk did not go unnoticed. Newsom's replied was a single sentence -- "You bent the knee." -- along with an image of a tweet then President Trump posted about a Musk visit to the White House where Trump noted he could have told Musk to drop to his knees and beg "and he would have done it."

You bent the knee. pic.twitter.com/5CNAWvZFSv

— Gavin Newsom (@GavinNewsom) July 16, 2024

State Senator Scott Wiener also had a response.

"California literally made you with taxpayer subsidies & because it's the best place around," he said in a retweet of one of Musk's posts. "Will this be a fake temper tantrum move just like Tesla's fake "move" to Texas?"  

California literally made you with taxpayer subsidies & because it’s the best place around. Will this be a fake temper tantrum move just like Tesla’s fake “move” to Texas? https://t.co/VN8kNFQsvf

— Senator Scott Wiener (@Scott_Wiener) July 16, 2024

LGBTQ rights advocates were also quick to criticize Musk's latest move.

"Just because he's rich doesn't mean he even understands the issues he is making comments about," said Gabrielle Antolovich, Director of the Billy DeFrank Center in San Jose. 

 Antolovich said she lived through the experience of her school notifying her parents that she was attracted to women.

"They didn't understand what was going on, what terrible thing had I done? All of these fights happened in my family and it was none of their business coming to my parents with that," she said. 

Musk has already moved the corporate headquarters of his electric car company Tesla to Austin from Palo Alto in 2021, though the company still has a large factory in Fremont that has expanded since that move.

Musk has also previously said that he moved his private residence from California to Texas.

The announcement about X comes less than two years after Musk took charge of the former Twitter social media platform in a $44 billion deal and fired its top executives.  Musk also fired, laid off, or otherwise lost the majority of its workforce including engineers, content moderators, and executives in charge of making rules and enforcing them.

In June 2023, Musk rebranded the platform as X and added a bright, flashing X logo to the top of the San Francisco building which houses its offices. It was removed within days after area residents complained and the city determined there was no permit obtained for the building signage. 

In:
• Technology
• Gavin Newsom
• Elon Musk
• Politics
• California
• SpaceX
• Twitter

Dave Pehling

Dave Pehling is website managing editor for CBS Bay Area. He started his journalism career doing freelance writing about music in the late 1990s, eventually working as a web writer, editor and producer for KTVU.com in 2003. He began his role with CBS Bay Area in 2015.