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Originally Posted by the Genral
This doesn't explain why they haven't made an official announcement yet.
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Tesla's situation is pretty complicated. For them, moving their HQ from CA to TX is a multi-year process. They have a host of things to straighten out first before they can leave.
They have a sprawled HQ in Palo Alto, across multiple buildings, some of which aren't as easily accessible from one to the next. Charles Schwab announced in 2019 that it will acquire TD Ameritrade and move their HQ to DFW. Their timeline for their move is in 2021.
Quote:
Originally Posted by the Genral
The Officials who locked down his Freemont factory succumbed to his threats to leave if they didn't allow his factory to reopen does however. I doubt they would have budged if he didn't threaten to leave if they didn't. I'm sorry but I can't think of a word that better describes the situation. Discontinue the lockdown on my factory or else. Sounds like a threat to me.
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Well at the time Tesla filed a lawsuit against Alameda County and the county didn't willingly back down. They only did because Gov. Gavin Newsome and others in the state assembly put the pressure on them. Alameda County begrudgingly allowed Tesla to reopen after Musk stated that he'll be at the factory and if anyone is arrested for the violation that it should be him and not the employees. By May 20th, Musk had withdrawn the lawsuit against Alameda County.
It was in early May (May 9th) that Elon announced that he will be moving the Tesla HQ to TX/NV.
https://www.the-sun.com/news/805072/...-texas-nevada/
Many thought it was a ploy to beat Alameda County into submission but then he doubled down on what he said again in August.
"There’s no question that our headquarters will remain in California for the short term. Long term, we’ll have to wait and see."
https://electrek.co/2020/08/05/tesla...on-musk-warns/
That doesn't exactly inspire a vote of confidence that Tesla is gonna be a California-lifer.
Why double down on moving the HQ out of California in August when the situation in Alameda County supposedly resolved itself in May? Because he still has issues with California's restrictive practices, both individually (i.e. wealth tax and increasing state income tax) and business wise (restricting his companies and pulling out support).
Quote:
Originally Posted by the Genral
Just wondering, when you say he legitimately wants out of CA, was that pre or post Covid-19? I saw an interview with Musk when he stated he thought it was a hoax, and was really pissed off because at the time, he was under the impression that the lockdown would be mandated until a vaccine was available. Now that Musk's demands have been met, there's no hurry.
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Elon's had his sights on TX since 2011 when he began scouting the US for the battery manufacturing Gigafactory (which went to NV at the time) and a location for SpaceX's personal owned spaceport.
Elon maintains a very solid rapport with the governor and business leaders in TX and I am speaking of both the past and present governors, Perry and Abbott.
Elon has a deteriorating relationship with CA politicians. They took away SpaceX's subsidies after he made his claim to move Tesla to TX back in May. They did it almost immediately, to spite him, without realizing that they're punishing the wrong company (SpaceX) over his statements regarding Tesla.
https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...sla-texas.html
Elon has pulled out of leasing space at the Port of Los Angeles twice now, where he wanted to manufacture and ship the Starship.
https://spacenews.com/spacex-drops-p...acility-again/
That's twice in 18 months that he dropped plans at the Port of LA. And he also suspended Starship construction in Florida because he wasn't able to find enough engineering talent to make the manufacturing there viable. His plan was to have a manufacturing base for Starship in CA, TX, and FL and to ship the rockets to SpaceX's private spaceport in TX by sea but now all he has left is the TX site to manufacture Starship. He's sent out a company wide email telling his best talent and SpaceX executives to get to TX and begin prioritizing the Starship program above all else.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/07/elon...-priority.html
He's bought all but 10 remaining homes in Boca Chica Beach, TX and he houses his employees there. He's already constructed the spaceport and has expanded it several times now. He's now constructing a resort there and an offshore launch site in the Gulf of Mexico which he'll connect using the Boring Co. technology with the launch site and spaceport on the mainland. He himself lives there 8 months of the year and he's very hands on. He himself is involved with the manufacturing of Starship.
https://thehill.com/opinion/technolo...-mars-in-texas
90% of all US astronauts live in Houston, TX which is just down I-69 from the RGV area where Boca Chica is. SpaceX has also started collaborating far more with other TX based aerospace companies like Axiom Space and XArc. The former to build technology and train astronauts and the latter to do worldwide deliveries with new tech at record times.
https://www.expressnews.com/business...X-15635566.php
He's also sold all of his homes in California. He did that as a promise to random fans that asked him if he was so committed to Mars then why own homes on Earth. He immediately sold all of his homes. But the real reason for that could just be that he's planning on making the leap to living in TX full time since he applied for a TX driver's license at that same time (and had to forego his CA driver's license as well).
And last but not least. After initially buying the land for the Tesla Terafactory, which made it the largest footprint of land that Tesla owns anywhere in the world, Elon doubled down even more and bought even more land. Why? Because he's also going to put battery manufacturing, video game development, software development, and likely the Tesla HQ on the newly purchased land.
https://electrek.co/2020/08/31/tesla...e-team-austin/
And
https://electrek.co/2020/09/25/tesla...ttery-factory/
Also, when they selected Austin as the site for a new Tesla factory, he was advised by his Tesla executives who unanimously selected Austin as the place to be outside of California. He mentioned that some of the executives themselves are making the move to Austin.
"Before deciding on where Tesla would begin building its second U.S. production facility, Musk says that he had a sitdown with key members of the electric automaker’s team. Some members of Tesla’s management would have to move to Texas to oversee some of the company’s actions in the Lone Star State, and Musk wanted to make sure that those individuals were comfortable with where they would be moving to."
“When talking to key members of the team that would need to move to Austin from California in order to get the factory going, Austin was their top pick to be totally frank,” Musk said. “That was a big factor in choosing Texas and Austin. Specifically Austin. I guess a lot of people from California if you ask them what’s the one place you’d move outside of California, it’s Austin.”
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-elon...xas-selection/
I'd say by 2025 that Austin will be the home of Tesla's HQ.
And I definitely want the HQ. I want every article that talks about Tesla to say "the Texas based carmaker" or "the Austin based vehicle manufacturer". I want every geek on forums like this to be putting Tesla's name under Austin when they make their F500 lists by metro or their market capitalization values by metro, etc. I want that prestige to be associated with Austin.
Tesla is a fan favorite company with millennials and there is no better city than Austin for millennial people and Tesla.