36 ms·

Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

435 points by gfitz 5y ago

xrd 5y ago
Low income taxes are good for employees and very lax labor laws are good for the company, but both aren't good for the employee and the company isn't affected by the former.
vletal 5y ago
> Our European visitors are important to us. > This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws. OT: I thought that I would not see this in mid-2021.
- maxekman 5y ago
  Very disappointing.
- TrackerFF 5y ago
  I still see this on a bunch of US news sites. At this point, I'm just assuming that corporate (at these sites/companies) decided the upgrade was not worth it, and it's easier/cheaper to just block European readers.
teddyh 5y ago
I guess that they could use the batteries there.
maxehmookau 5y ago
With Texas' new laws on womens' rights to bodily autonomy, I'm genuinely surprised by this. No forward thinking company should be setting up there right now.
tzm 5y ago
Yet, Tesla will still have to ship Texas cars out of state to sell to Texans.
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Symbolic move with some logistic practicality with Boca Chica and his 400 sq ft tiny house [1] being home base at Starbase. All signs point to Tesla continuing manufacturing at Fremont and they just opened a Megapack manufacturing facility in Lathrop, CA (hiring 1k-2k workers) [2]. The irony that "pro business, less regulation" Texas doesn't allow direct to consumer sales of Teslas. [1] https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/elon-musk-lives-prefab-tiny-house-texas https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/elon-musk-lives-pr... [2] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-megapack-lathrop-megafactory-hiring-careers/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-megapack-lathrop-megafactory...
  - mlindner 5y ago
    Your source is incorrect, Musk has denied living in a prefab house. He lives in one of the small houses in Boca Chica village.
    - snypher 5y ago
      https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/07/03/where-elon-musk-lives-since-he-pledged-to-ditch-almost-all-physical-possessions/?sh=6016afd84332 https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/07/03/wher...
  - almost_usual 5y ago
    A 400 sq ft tiny house in Texas, mega mansion in Hillsborough (Bay Area). https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-takes-last-remaining-bay-area-house-off-market-2021-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-takes-last-remaini...
    - azernik 5y ago
      Yeah, the 400sqft thing is his on-worksite cabin, not his home.
    - relativ575 5y ago
      Of course he can buy as many properties as he wants, and I'm sure his family is more than well taken care of. The point is he is willing to live in a tiny house so that he can be close to his life project, and not just occasionally, he spends a lot of time at Boca Chica.
iExploder 5y ago
ouch, here's a big one
earth2mars 5y ago
Hope Texas allows them sell directly to customers now at least
_hilro 5y ago
> Our European visitors are important to us. alt: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/07/tesla-moves-its-headquarters-from-california-to-texas.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/07/tesla-moves-its-headquarters...
- g8oz 5y ago
  Fta: He added, “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.”
anonymouswacker 5y ago
This is good for California.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  That is a pretty silly stance for anyone who likes tax revenue.
  - SCUSKU 5y ago
    Or jobs for that matter.
    - thebigman433 5y ago
      They just built another massive warehouse near their Fremont plant and plan on continuing expansion in California. This move is just to get headlines, they are expanding everywhere.
- hncurious 5y ago
  How so? I have a hard time seeing how that could be, but I may be missing a counterintuitive answer.
dangrossman 5y ago
How does this save or make Elon Musk money, personally? Because that seems to be the question that underlies almost every major move Tesla has made since Elon took over.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  You know Elon has run Tesla from like... practically the ground floor right? He bought a controlling share like 8 months into the company history and has been CEO since 2008. Given that half of Elon's wealth is Tesla stock, what makes Elon money is pretty much inseparable from what makes the company money. Weird thing to complain about.
  - muzz 5y ago
    I think GP's point was more about wondering whether this change is beneficial to the company, or mainly beneficial to Elon. I think that's a very valid question.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
I know this is charged but it's genuine question due to my ignorance - why are companies having or moving HQs to Texas? It feels that : 1. It's way out of temperate climate that one would live in when given full choice and all things equal (understanding they never are of course - I live in great white North :) 2. Politics are highly conservative and frequently invasive. now clearly half of Americans like it that way,but still,seems odd for largely progressive company like Tesla that's ostensibly working to put oil industry on defence... And that's not even allowed to sell there. Taxes?some quid pro quo to get sales in? Something else?
- nunez 5y ago
  Corp taxes low, cost of living low (for now), HEAPS of open space (important for Tesla), UT Austin's compsci program (which is ranked) provides a good pipeline, engineers from the Bay are moving to Austin at an increasingly high rate, and demographics are shifting more progressive. I think the writing is on the wall for tech in CA honestly
  - dane-pgp 5y ago
    If the demographics of Texas is really shifting more progressive, then the writing could also be on the wall for Republican presidential campaigns. Perhaps at that point the party will suddenly find itself again embracing the wisdom of the proposed Lodge-Gossett constitutional amendment, which got as far as approval by a super majority in the US Senate in 1950. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/analysis-fractional-proportional-lodge-gossett-method-awarding-electoral-votes https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/analysis-fractional-prop...
    - belltaco 5y ago
      Why would Democrats support that?
      - dane-pgp 5y ago
        Because it would make presidential election outcomes more likely to reflect the popular vote (which is the morally right thing to do), and because it reduces the risk that small changes in big states create vastly different election outcomes (which is the strategically right thing to do, if you expect your opponent to cheat, lie, and start insurrections based on false claims).
nabaraz 5y ago
Sort of a misleading headline. From the article[1] > Musk continued on to say they will still be expanding activities in California, but they want to do that in Texas too. > “This isn’t a matter of Tesla leaving California, our intention is to actually increase output,” he explained. 1. https://www.kxan.com/news/business/elon-musk-announces-teslas-headquarters-will-move-to-austin/ https://www.kxan.com/news/business/elon-musk-announces-tesla...
georgewsinger 5y ago
Warning: This post is written from a libertarian/center-right viewpoint. While this move is great, I'm skeptical of the idea that moving to Austin is a political panacea for moderate/center-right/libertarian governance. - The same percentage of people who voted for hard leftist candidates in SF also voted for hard leftist candidates in Austin. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Texas_Democratic_presidential_primary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Texas_Democratic_presiden... This means that, fundamentally, people in Austin believe the same things that people in California do. - There are homeless issues in Austin, just as there are in SF (though not as bad as SF, it's getting worse every year). - Many people don't realize how regulatory constrained Austin is for new buildings/housing. The same NIMBYism exists in Austin too, just like SF! But this isn't surprising since people in Austin basically have the same politics as people in SF. The only reason why rents are cheaper (though that's changing as more people move in), is because Austin isn't as big as SF. If all of the intelligent tech people moved to Austin, it would have the same supply & demand problems that SF has (since you'd have the same number of people mixed with the same regulatory constraints on new housing supply). - Yes, it's true Austin is a place with zero income tax and fewer business regulations, but that's only because it's held at bay by the surrounding red regions of Texas. But it's only a matter of time before Texas turns blue. So in the long-run -- when the state house will be controlled by the same party running California -- why would you expect tax rates and regulations to stay low? In 10 years, Texas will have the same political makeup (at the city, state, and federal levels) as California! - The bulk of taxes and regulations aren't at the state/city levels. They're at the Federal level. A zero percent state income tax is cool, but it only goes so far. Is the entire tech ecosystem really going to sustain this movement for a mere 10% drop in total taxes? The SF/NYC network effects are still very strong. I'm not sure such a marginal/incremental decrease in taxes is enough to affect this sort of change. Power to Tesla though. I really, really hope to be proven wrong.
- resters 5y ago
  It's less about ideology than about the impact of entrenched power. For all the leftist rhetoric in SF, interest groups like property owner, landlords, etc., have political power sufficient to preserve the status quo. I think the geographical constraints of SF (water all around) amplify the power of the above groups at the expense of others. Austin may have more space to gradually expand and spread out in a way that is more equitable and does not so disproportionately reward those who were there first.
zz865 5y ago
How many people actually work in HQ? Is the design done there are is that going to move?
cletus 5y ago
Good. This will both alleviate pressure on the Bay Area as well as accelerating the political shift to the left in Texas. It's a win all around. I actually think that living in the Bay Area as a tech employee is increasingly unjustifiable from an ethical point-of-view. It was once the case where that was necessary for many career paths but that's increasingly not the case and the pandemic has hastened that shift. Why unethical? Because tech workers are contributing to the displacement of the people those places need to survive. Example: I read an article about one of the Google bus drivers and what his schedule was. It was basically get up at 4am, drive for 2 hours to work, drive a bus for 5 hours, sit around unpaid for a few hours, drive for another 5 hours then drive 2 hours home. Why? Because he couldn't possibly afford to live anywhere closer. You can argue that NIMBYism is rampant in the Bay Area and this restricts development of housing units and you'd be right. Yet the reality is you're still contributing to that displacement even though you're not responsible for those policies.
- CheezeIt 5y ago
  The real moral failing (not in a serious light) of living there is that you’re funding the Bay Area landlords.
- xxpor 5y ago
  But that's nonsensical from an ethical perspective because you can apply it to infinity. It's the no ethical consumption under capitalism idea. The right solution is to fix the root cause (NIMBYism) not throw your hands up and move.
- ProfessorLayton 5y ago
  > Why unethical? Because tech workers are contributing to the displacement of the people those places need to survive. Bay native here working in tech, and I'd argue that most SFBAY constituents are contributing to the NIMBY problem, not just tech workers. The vast majority of the workforce in the Bay doesn't work in tech, and they oppose new housing just the same. The incentives just don't align for there to be a local solution to this problem. Unfortunately it seems this will have to be taken out of local control via bills like SB9 and SB10 that are slowly but surely chipping away at the problem.
barney54 5y ago
Now that Elon has extracted a bunch of subsidies from California, he is moving on.
- deleted 5y ago
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- joewadcan 5y ago
  Which ones specifically? The only two I know of are: - The low/zero emission car rebate that Toyota and every other manufacturer has used. - The clean energy manufacturing tax write off that applies to over a hundred other companies. I don't think California has given Elon any significant subsidies. When Tesla asked states to compete on the Gigafactory, California lost to Nevada.
  - belltaco 5y ago
    https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1089205_tesla-to-add-production-capacity-for-35000-more-electric-cars https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1089205_tesla-to-add-pr...
  - icapulet2 5y ago
    lol are you serious? Google "tesla ZEV credits". and CAEATFA has landed it over $225MM worth in write offs.
    - joewadcan 5y ago
      Write offs isn't the right word here. It's a partial tax offset for purchasing manufacturing equipment. The tax itself is already high, so the partial exemptions on that tax isn't some give away.
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danhak 5y ago
California's tax regime is really backward. I suspect Tesla's departure is just the tip of the iceberg and that the repeal of the SALT deduction in 2017 really hastened this trend. High earners pay an effective tax rate of > 50%. They are partially picking up the slack from Prop 13, which artificially distorts the housing market by allowing longtime homeowners to pay property taxes based on decades-old assessed values while sitting on millions in equity gains. So young, high earners see the state taking a massive chunk of their paycheck in exchange for middling infrastructure and pitiful public schools while simultaneously putting its finger on the scale of a wildly inflated housing market. The exodus will only pick up steam unless policymakers get their act together.
- brightball 5y ago
  I’ve long suspected that the Democratic obsession with federal policy is to try to reduce the appeal of other states where companies may want to move. It’s often seemed like people in California would prefer that a manufacturing operations operate in Asia and come through their ports rather than operate in the middle/south US.
  - outside1234 5y ago
    I don't understand any of that - if anything - the opposite is true.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - SavantIdiot 5y ago
    Naw, Cali just wants clean air and water, and manufacturing doesn't want to pay to not screw the planet. That's why companies pillage Asia: their environment is for sale to the lowest bidder. Capitalism without regulation, baby! You're making the same conservative argument about wages: if you pay a living wage companies will flee. No, if a company can't pay a living wage, it shouldn't exist. Likewise, if a company can't manufacture products without destroying the environment, it shouldn't manufacture those products. I'm just a conservative. A nature conservative.
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gautamcgoel 5y ago
What I'm really curious about is what happens to Austin (and to a lesser extent, Atlanta, Raleigh, Denver, SLC etc). Does Austin become the next Bay Area/next Seattle? Crazy high housing prices, and high homelessness/crime? If so, how long does that take, and what happens to native Austinites? If not, what prevents history from repeating itself?
- nine_k 5y ago
  This being Texas, I suppose Austin has fewer restrictions on new development, so housing prices may be less crazy. To say nothing of taxes, which leave more of your wages to pay the rent.
  - redisman 5y ago
    Austin also has hundreds of miles of land around it in all directions. Coastal cities are always expensive because of the geographical barriers causing over half of potential lands to be water and having a lot of bottlenecks to get into the city
  - gopalv 5y ago
    > which leave more of your wages to pay the rent. Austin has crazy property taxes in comparison to CA, which is where they get you. 2.5% tax rate evaluated for the property prices annually, so retiring on a fixed income in Austin is a tiny bit harder than in CA (that's the real goal of Prop 13). Income taxes are easier to think about, because it goes to zero when your income drops, but property taxes based on the unrealized value of the house is completely out of your control. The homestead exemption does apply, but Prop 13 is by far the superior option for an owner, though what Austin does is better for the government's fiscal policy.
    - thephyber 5y ago
      > the superior option for an owner Agree with you, but I would guess most of the Gigafactory workers who haven’t exercised stock options probably can’t afford to own in the Bay Area. While Prop 13 probably filters down to renters in reduced rent, the supply/demand issues for housing is still pretty out of whack even with all of the new units in Milpitas. Also Prop 13 has second order effects that keep older empty nester boomers in a large house even though they would otherwise downsize if they didn’t lose such a generous benefit.
Apocryphon 5y ago
The official reason is because of housing: "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." But, he added, "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." https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/tesla-moves-headquarters-from-california-to-texas/ar-AAPfM7I https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/tesla-moves-headqu...
- gfitz 5y ago
  I don’t think housing would be the “official” reason as Elon is keenly aware of how hard it is to buy a house in central Texas right now. Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-austin-texas-housing-tesla-spacex-boring-job-postings-2021-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-austin-texas-housi...
  - Johnny555 5y ago
    As the official spokesperson for the company, if Musk says it's "housing", then housing is the official reason. It may not be the real reason (which probably has more to do with his feelings about California in general and maybe proximity to SpaceX's Texas facilities), but it's the official reason.
  - Mountain_Skies 5y ago
    That's temporary and the company has to look at things long term. Austin doesn't have the geographical barriers that the Bay Area has. If the building supplies and labor are available, Austin can sprawl out in pretty much any direction, though obviously transportation eventually becomes an issue.
  - CalChris 5y ago
    Compared to the Peninsula, Austin is basically free. Median home price in Austin is $575,000. Median home price in Palo Alto, where the current Tesla HQ is, is $3,488,610.
pdq 5y ago
This is mostly symbolic so far as Tesla doesn’t even have the factory ready. Elon has options to exercise in Q4 before they expire, which will realize a substantial capital gain. By moving both personally and his business to Texas, he is likely avoiding California state income tax and capital gains, since Texas has neither. I’d say that’s bad faith, given how much California has subsidized his companies.
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  How much has California subsidized his companies?
- panopticon 5y ago
  I think California uses an "allocation ratio" to determine how much he will owe when he exercises those options [1], so he's not getting away tax-free. 1: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/misc/1004.html https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/misc/1004.html
unclebucknasty 5y ago
This would be a complete non-story if not for the propaganda-driven political climate that needlessly and divisively pits "red states" against "blue states".
- muzz 5y ago
  Not sure why this comment is being down-voted, but I do agree with it somewhat. As an outsider, I see other states like Washington state also having no state income tax, but none of the kind of writing when companies move there or form there instead of California.
cjensen 5y ago
When CEOs move, they often move their headquarters closer to where they live. Somehow Tesla managed to survive all the problems of California until shortly after Musk moved to Texas. Folks talking about the advantages and disadvantages of California vs Texas may be overthinking this.
- pmorici 5y ago
  Wonder if it had anything to do with this… https://mobile.twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1446251762499743750 https://mobile.twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/14462517624...
  - andyxor 5y ago
    or this https://nypost.com/2021/10/05/tesla-ordered-to-pay-137m-to-ex-worker-over-racist-work-culture/ https://nypost.com/2021/10/05/tesla-ordered-to-pay-137m-to-e...
    - semiquaver 5y ago
      > federal court
      - andyxor 5y ago
        San Francisco jury
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    A childish Twitter exchange from May 2020? I doubt it.
    - valparaiso 5y ago
      People vote for such leftists who are corrupt and sponsored by Oil companies, like in this particular example. Proposition 47, taxes on whites for reparations and so on - Commifornia gets what it should - people are leaving.
andyxor 5y ago
makes sense, especially after $137M court order over restroom graffiti
- deleted 5y ago
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outside1234 5y ago
Will the women have to wear Handmaid's bonnets to work?
- deleted 5y ago
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paxys 5y ago
Whenever I read news like this I can never figure out what moving a company's headquarters actually means. Musk has already been living in Texas for a while. Tesla already has sizable operations there (both offices and factories). The company is registered in Delaware, so legally this change means nothing. They aren't going to fire employees in California or force them to move (in fact Musk said that they will continue to expand their Bay Area staff). They will continue to pay (or not pay) taxes exactly the same as before. So, besides a press release what is the change exactly? It's also funny that Tesla still can't sell their cars directly to customers in Texas.
- zeruch 5y ago
  It's a PR move to cow CA politicians to be more amenable to C-suites without challenge. It's theater. Petty, obstinate, twattish theater.
  - philwelch 5y ago
    Those poor, powerless, persecuted politicians.
    - vkou 5y ago
      Compared to billionaires (who tend to retain their power and money, regardless of where public opinion stands on them), that's a not a wrong set of adjectives to describe most of them.
    - SauciestGNU 5y ago
      Politicians are at least theoretically accountable to an electorate, whereas egomaniacal billionaires are accountable to nobody.
      - FredPret 5y ago
        uhhh... they are accountable to every one of their clients, every time those clients make a purchase. For almost all billionaires, that's a far larger constituency and a much more frequent and efficient selection process compared to elections every x years by the 30% of the population who bother to vote. As soon as they stop performing, the money stops rolling in.
outside1234 5y ago
The total tax burden in Texas is 8.19% vs. California at 9.48%. The reason we pay close to 50% in California is that people are paid much much much more here. This is a problem you want to have. ref: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494 https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-bur...
m0zg 5y ago
100% predictable. They'll eventually move factories there as well, at least the ones where there are a lot of employees. CA is downright abusive to businesses. Only the highest margin Silicon Valley style businesses (which Tesla isn't) can survive in such a hostile regime, and only out of necessity - because that's where talent happens to live. As talent distributes more and more and companies move out, CA will run out of other people's money. Happens every time. That's why they're planning a wealth tax which you'll continue to pay for 10 years after you move out.
sanderjd 5y ago
... I honestly thought this already happened. Was that some other Musk company?
trhway 5y ago
I think it hints SpaceX mega IPO - with the usual actors making moves to tax unrecognized gains it is a preparation move ahead of it.
m4rtink 5y ago
With these moves I understand the companies might have good reasons for that (costs, nu-favourable laws, etc.) but it always bothers me what happens to the employees ? Do they just "raise the anchor" and move with the company (if they do actually physically relocate, which does not seem to be really the case in this instance) ? Maybe that's normal in the US but the though of having to leave your friends, parts of family family, house/flat and familiar environment in general because your company decided to relocate somewhere else is frightening! Of maybe that's just my central-European perspective.
- ur-whale 5y ago
  > Of maybe that's just my central-European perspective. This kind of sedentary thinking is one of the many reasons why there aren't any Tesla-like companies in Europe.
- oxplot 5y ago
  > it always bothers me what happens to the employees In this particular case, not much. They are expanding their factory in California. They are not moving all their operations.
didibus 5y ago
I know some people like to make this political, and I know that the real reason is probably a simple mix of cheaper land, lower taxes and thus hoping to raise profits, but I personally think this is a great thing. California is saturated, it's nice to distribute things amongst the states more evenly. There's already so many people and high value tech companies in California.
asdff 5y ago
Anyone have a running list of enormously rich people moving from California to Texas to avoid being taxed on a windfall and ostensibly justifying it with insert reason here? So far I have Joe Rogan with his spotify deal and now Musk with some of his options coming up for payday.
- boringg 5y ago
  The plan was hatched when they smoked that joint together. Great state to move to if you want to avoid taxes on capital gains and if you want to build factories doing whatever the heck you want with no worker protections. If you really think of it - one of the main reasons Musk started in CA was because thats where his client base was to get the homegrown advantages for clientbase, talent and green benefits/cred. Now since his base has moved globally, he is moving to the lowest cost of operations (read: Texas). And to be fair - it would be very difficult to upsize any of his manufacturing capabilities in the bay area. The fact that he even has a major facility there is kind of impressive.
- paxys 5y ago
  Both will have to pay CA taxes regardless. The California tax board does not mess around. Rich people are generally more afraid of them than the IRS (which has become toothless in recent years).
  - aaron_m04 5y ago
    I'm going to need a source on the IRS becoming toothless.
  - asdff 5y ago
    Rogan won't have to pay california income taxes if he's left the state and a resident of texas when he is paid income from spotify. This move saved him 13 million dollars (1). If musk moves before he vests options he's not getting taxed by the state of california for vesting in texas. https://www.newsweek.com/joe-rogan-moving-texas-87-million-tax-breaks-1520739 https://www.newsweek.com/joe-rogan-moving-texas-87-million-t...
potiuper 5y ago
The https://www.tesla.com/contact https://www.tesla.com/contact page should have been updated at the same time as the shareholder meeting announcement as it states the HQ is still in CA.
cletus 5y ago
Here's another point to consider: the Trump tax "cuts" in 2017 were in fact a giant middle finger to college-educated workers in coastal blue states, in three major ways: 1. The $200-500k Federal tax bracket actually went up; 2. Loss of the SALT deduction. There are 9 states without state income tax. Most of them are red (Washington is a notable exception). This disproportionately hits blue states; and 3. Reducing the cap for the mortgage deduction, which again only affects expensive states. We have a hung Senate, essentially. A better description is to say that it is controlled by Charles Koch, who owns Joe Machin and the Republican Party. So these tax hikes on blue states haven't been rolled back under Biden because of Charles Koch, basically. In the proposed bill, the SALT deduction isn't getting reinstituted, the mortgage cap is the same and the corporate tax cuts (you know, the ones that will trickle down) are only getting partially rolled back. And even that might not pass. But what this means is that there is now a huge financial incentive for workers in California and New York in particular to move south. Hell, it was a significant factor in me moving from NYC to Florida, as an example. But I wonder if the unintended consequence of McConnell's and Trump's giant middle finger to the blue states could be the migration of left-leaning voters to Texas, Florida and even Tennessee and Georgia (GA has a state income tax but Atlanta is cheap compared to CA/NY). Perhaps Tesla's move is part of that trend. It would be entertaining, to say the least, if this hastened the political extinction of the party of Trump. The trends were such that Texas is likely to be a battleground state in ~10 years as it is. I can but hope.
vadym909 5y ago
I'm glad with all these tech companies moving to Texas, it is very likely to go Blue next election!
- paxys 5y ago
  It’ll still be a while considering they have passed a bunch of laws making it hard for blue voters to actually vote.
- rexreed 5y ago
  Combined with the demographic changes, Texas is sure to go blue. However, the blue party doesn't really seem to be a homogeneous philosophy. Same with the red party. Maybe we'll finally see a challenge from a credible third party that will take the center and leave the fringes for the red and blue.
- deleted 5y ago
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EastOfTruth 5y ago
Getting closer to the launch pads?
ab_testing 5y ago
I think that people living in these high tax and spend states are starting to ask that what are they getting for paying these high taxes. For example New York spends 9000 per person as part of their budget whereas Texas spends around $3700 per resident. Are the services rendered in NY really 3x better than those in TX.
DoreenMichele 5y ago
California's housing issues have been compounded by the spate of fires in recent years and they have 12 percent of the overall population of the US but 25 percent of the homeless population. California's housing issues are complex and not likely to be remedied quickly. This sounds like a completely reasonable plan at first glance.
ycui1986 5y ago
So Tesla moved their headquarter to a state that they cannot even sell their cars directly.
chasd00 5y ago
As long as the California refugees stay in Austin and nowhere else the it’ll be fine. The problem is they bring all the issues they’re running from with them.
- winkeyless 5y ago
  Which issues are specific to “them”?
guymcgwire 5y ago
Right now there are a total of 5 houses or townhouses under $2.5M listed for sale in Palo Alto with the cheapest being a cute 1200 sq ft 3BD/2BA house for the low price of $1.68M. The Palo Alto/Los Altos/West Menlo Park areas have fought hard to prevent housing development (NIMBY!). Recently a small number of luxury homes were built in the Barron Park part of Palo Alto. The homes sold quickly for $4.5M and up. Meanwhile, on the same small street in Barron Park, there are currently five homeless people living out of their cars and three trailer homes. They use the adjacent park's open public bathroom. I don't think the departure of Tesla HQ will have much of an impact on the town, which is a shame. Something bad is festering beneath the pristine surface here.
Dopameaner 5y ago
Note that Musk moved the HQ to Austin, one of the most liberal cities in the US and probably the most expensive in Texas, and not for example to Fort Worth, a conservative city next door to Dallas. The fact that TX doesn't have a State income tax or a carbon capture tax but California does, will have also been a factor I'm sure.
Bud 5y ago
I'm sure female employees of Tesla (and wives of male employees, and daughters of employees), will be just thrilled to move to Texas so they can be subjected to Texas' new reproductive rights system, derived from The Handmaid's Tale.
- reayn 5y ago
  It would take years of practice and a genuine passion to comment something more irrelevant than this.
- lovecg 5y ago
  Beliefs about abortion are not split along gender lines. This is mostly a religious vs. non-religious issue, not a male vs. female issue.
dmode 5y ago
I am curious if there are any Tesla Palo Alto employees here. Wondering if this is also paired with moving their eng team ? Otherwise, feels like a symbolic move by Elon almost as a response to the factory shutdown last year. He also said that they are expanding Fremont production and they recently announced a new factory in Lathrop. Weird move, but whatever
myself248 5y ago
I mean, if they want cheaper housing and plenty of space for factories, they could always look at Michigan. But then they'd have to make cars that understand ice and snow, and autopilot is much easier to sell if they can pretend freezing weather doesn't exist....
arcanon 5y ago
If I were a republican in tx I would be thinking about how to gerrymander this new population of blue voters.
b20000 5y ago
zero fucks given
andrei512 5y ago
> Our European visitors are important to us. > This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws.
- tim333 5y ago
  https://archive.ph/TU9xO https://archive.ph/TU9xO Of course that message actually means our European visitors aren't that important to us.
- tdrdt 5y ago
  Well they aren't wrong. They protect important visitors.
  - pogorniy 5y ago
    Corporate talk: say correct things and do what you want
drcongo 5y ago
There goes the neighborhood.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
It would be interesting if these huge companies started funding the creation of new cities in Nebraska or something. Somewhere with tons of land, centrally located, they could fund some amazingly large airports to get anywhere…
- snypher 5y ago
  What could go wrong? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town
xtat 5y ago
Great move. The Bay Area "peak" is starting to feel like a long time ago.

435 points by gfitz 5y ago

xrd 5y ago

Low income taxes are good for employees and very lax labor laws are good for the company, but both aren't good for the employee and the company isn't affected by the former.

vletal 5y ago

> Our European visitors are important to us. > This site is currently unavailable to visitors from the European Economic Area while we work to ensure your data is protected in accordance with applicable EU laws. OT: I thought that I would not see this in mid-2021.

maxekman 5y ago
Very disappointing.
TrackerFF 5y ago
I still see this on a bunch of US news sites. At this point, I'm just assuming that corporate (at these sites/companies) decided the upgrade was not worth it, and it's easier/cheaper to just block European readers.

teddyh 5y ago

I guess that they could use the batteries there.

maxehmookau 5y ago

With Texas' new laws on womens' rights to bodily autonomy, I'm genuinely surprised by this. No forward thinking company should be setting up there right now.

tzm 5y ago

Yet, Tesla will still have to ship Texas cars out of state to sell to Texans.

toomuchtodo 5y ago
Symbolic move with some logistic practicality with Boca Chica and his 400 sq ft tiny house [1] being home base at Starbase. All signs point to Tesla continuing manufacturing at Fremont and they just opened a Megapack manufacturing facility in Lathrop, CA (hiring 1k-2k workers) [2]. The irony that "pro business, less regulation" Texas doesn't allow direct to consumer sales of Teslas. [1] https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/elon-musk-lives-prefab-tiny-house-texas https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/elon-musk-lives-pr... [2] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-megapack-lathrop-megafactory-hiring-careers/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-megapack-lathrop-megafactory...
- mlindner 5y ago
  Your source is incorrect, Musk has denied living in a prefab house. He lives in one of the small houses in Boca Chica village.
  - snypher 5y ago
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/07/03/where-elon-musk-lives-since-he-pledged-to-ditch-almost-all-physical-possessions/?sh=6016afd84332 https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2021/07/03/wher...
- almost_usual 5y ago
  A 400 sq ft tiny house in Texas, mega mansion in Hillsborough (Bay Area). https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-takes-last-remaining-bay-area-house-off-market-2021-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-takes-last-remaini...
  - azernik 5y ago
    Yeah, the 400sqft thing is his on-worksite cabin, not his home.
  - relativ575 5y ago
    Of course he can buy as many properties as he wants, and I'm sure his family is more than well taken care of. The point is he is willing to live in a tiny house so that he can be close to his life project, and not just occasionally, he spends a lot of time at Boca Chica.

iExploder 5y ago

ouch, here's a big one

earth2mars 5y ago

Hope Texas allows them sell directly to customers now at least

_hilro 5y ago

> Our European visitors are important to us. alt: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/07/tesla-moves-its-headquarters-from-california-to-texas.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/07/tesla-moves-its-headquarters...

g8oz 5y ago
Fta: He added, “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.”

anonymouswacker 5y ago

This is good for California.

bpodgursky 5y ago
That is a pretty silly stance for anyone who likes tax revenue.
- SCUSKU 5y ago
  Or jobs for that matter.
  - thebigman433 5y ago
    They just built another massive warehouse near their Fremont plant and plan on continuing expansion in California. This move is just to get headlines, they are expanding everywhere.
hncurious 5y ago
How so? I have a hard time seeing how that could be, but I may be missing a counterintuitive answer.

dangrossman 5y ago

How does this save or make Elon Musk money, personally? Because that seems to be the question that underlies almost every major move Tesla has made since Elon took over.

bpodgursky 5y ago
You know Elon has run Tesla from like... practically the ground floor right? He bought a controlling share like 8 months into the company history and has been CEO since 2008. Given that half of Elon's wealth is Tesla stock, what makes Elon money is pretty much inseparable from what makes the company money. Weird thing to complain about.
- muzz 5y ago
  I think GP's point was more about wondering whether this change is beneficial to the company, or mainly beneficial to Elon. I think that's a very valid question.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

I know this is charged but it's genuine question due to my ignorance - why are companies having or moving HQs to Texas? It feels that : 1. It's way out of temperate climate that one would live in when given full choice and all things equal (understanding they never are of course - I live in great white North :) 2. Politics are highly conservative and frequently invasive. now clearly half of Americans like it that way,but still,seems odd for largely progressive company like Tesla that's ostensibly working to put oil industry on defence... And that's not even allowed to sell there. Taxes?some quid pro quo to get sales in? Something else?

nunez 5y ago
Corp taxes low, cost of living low (for now), HEAPS of open space (important for Tesla), UT Austin's compsci program (which is ranked) provides a good pipeline, engineers from the Bay are moving to Austin at an increasingly high rate, and demographics are shifting more progressive. I think the writing is on the wall for tech in CA honestly
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  If the demographics of Texas is really shifting more progressive, then the writing could also be on the wall for Republican presidential campaigns. Perhaps at that point the party will suddenly find itself again embracing the wisdom of the proposed Lodge-Gossett constitutional amendment, which got as far as approval by a super majority in the US Senate in 1950. https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/analysis-fractional-proportional-lodge-gossett-method-awarding-electoral-votes https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/analysis-fractional-prop...
  - belltaco 5y ago
    Why would Democrats support that?
    - dane-pgp 5y ago
      Because it would make presidential election outcomes more likely to reflect the popular vote (which is the morally right thing to do), and because it reduces the risk that small changes in big states create vastly different election outcomes (which is the strategically right thing to do, if you expect your opponent to cheat, lie, and start insurrections based on false claims).

nabaraz 5y ago

Sort of a misleading headline. From the article[1] > Musk continued on to say they will still be expanding activities in California, but they want to do that in Texas too. > “This isn’t a matter of Tesla leaving California, our intention is to actually increase output,” he explained. 1. https://www.kxan.com/news/business/elon-musk-announces-teslas-headquarters-will-move-to-austin/ https://www.kxan.com/news/business/elon-musk-announces-tesla...

georgewsinger 5y ago

Warning: This post is written from a libertarian/center-right viewpoint. While this move is great, I'm skeptical of the idea that moving to Austin is a political panacea for moderate/center-right/libertarian governance. - The same percentage of people who voted for hard leftist candidates in SF also voted for hard leftist candidates in Austin. Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Texas_Democratic_presidential_primary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Texas_Democratic_presiden... This means that, fundamentally, people in Austin believe the same things that people in California do. - There are homeless issues in Austin, just as there are in SF (though not as bad as SF, it's getting worse every year). - Many people don't realize how regulatory constrained Austin is for new buildings/housing. The same NIMBYism exists in Austin too, just like SF! But this isn't surprising since people in Austin basically have the same politics as people in SF. The only reason why rents are cheaper (though that's changing as more people move in), is because Austin isn't as big as SF. If all of the intelligent tech people moved to Austin, it would have the same supply & demand problems that SF has (since you'd have the same number of people mixed with the same regulatory constraints on new housing supply). - Yes, it's true Austin is a place with zero income tax and fewer business regulations, but that's only because it's held at bay by the surrounding red regions of Texas. But it's only a matter of time before Texas turns blue. So in the long-run -- when the state house will be controlled by the same party running California -- why would you expect tax rates and regulations to stay low? In 10 years, Texas will have the same political makeup (at the city, state, and federal levels) as California! - The bulk of taxes and regulations aren't at the state/city levels. They're at the Federal level. A zero percent state income tax is cool, but it only goes so far. Is the entire tech ecosystem really going to sustain this movement for a mere 10% drop in total taxes? The SF/NYC network effects are still very strong. I'm not sure such a marginal/incremental decrease in taxes is enough to affect this sort of change. Power to Tesla though. I really, really hope to be proven wrong.

resters 5y ago
It's less about ideology than about the impact of entrenched power. For all the leftist rhetoric in SF, interest groups like property owner, landlords, etc., have political power sufficient to preserve the status quo. I think the geographical constraints of SF (water all around) amplify the power of the above groups at the expense of others. Austin may have more space to gradually expand and spread out in a way that is more equitable and does not so disproportionately reward those who were there first.

zz865 5y ago

How many people actually work in HQ? Is the design done there are is that going to move?

cletus 5y ago

Good. This will both alleviate pressure on the Bay Area as well as accelerating the political shift to the left in Texas. It's a win all around. I actually think that living in the Bay Area as a tech employee is increasingly unjustifiable from an ethical point-of-view. It was once the case where that was necessary for many career paths but that's increasingly not the case and the pandemic has hastened that shift. Why unethical? Because tech workers are contributing to the displacement of the people those places need to survive. Example: I read an article about one of the Google bus drivers and what his schedule was. It was basically get up at 4am, drive for 2 hours to work, drive a bus for 5 hours, sit around unpaid for a few hours, drive for another 5 hours then drive 2 hours home. Why? Because he couldn't possibly afford to live anywhere closer. You can argue that NIMBYism is rampant in the Bay Area and this restricts development of housing units and you'd be right. Yet the reality is you're still contributing to that displacement even though you're not responsible for those policies.

CheezeIt 5y ago
The real moral failing (not in a serious light) of living there is that you’re funding the Bay Area landlords.
xxpor 5y ago
But that's nonsensical from an ethical perspective because you can apply it to infinity. It's the no ethical consumption under capitalism idea. The right solution is to fix the root cause (NIMBYism) not throw your hands up and move.
ProfessorLayton 5y ago
> Why unethical? Because tech workers are contributing to the displacement of the people those places need to survive. Bay native here working in tech, and I'd argue that most SFBAY constituents are contributing to the NIMBY problem, not just tech workers. The vast majority of the workforce in the Bay doesn't work in tech, and they oppose new housing just the same. The incentives just don't align for there to be a local solution to this problem. Unfortunately it seems this will have to be taken out of local control via bills like SB9 and SB10 that are slowly but surely chipping away at the problem.

barney54 5y ago

Now that Elon has extracted a bunch of subsidies from California, he is moving on.

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joewadcan 5y ago
Which ones specifically? The only two I know of are: - The low/zero emission car rebate that Toyota and every other manufacturer has used. - The clean energy manufacturing tax write off that applies to over a hundred other companies. I don't think California has given Elon any significant subsidies. When Tesla asked states to compete on the Gigafactory, California lost to Nevada.
- belltaco 5y ago
  https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1089205_tesla-to-add-production-capacity-for-35000-more-electric-cars https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1089205_tesla-to-add-pr...
- icapulet2 5y ago
  lol are you serious? Google "tesla ZEV credits". and CAEATFA has landed it over $225MM worth in write offs.
  - joewadcan 5y ago
    Write offs isn't the right word here. It's a partial tax offset for purchasing manufacturing equipment. The tax itself is already high, so the partial exemptions on that tax isn't some give away.
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danhak 5y ago

California's tax regime is really backward. I suspect Tesla's departure is just the tip of the iceberg and that the repeal of the SALT deduction in 2017 really hastened this trend. High earners pay an effective tax rate of > 50%. They are partially picking up the slack from Prop 13, which artificially distorts the housing market by allowing longtime homeowners to pay property taxes based on decades-old assessed values while sitting on millions in equity gains. So young, high earners see the state taking a massive chunk of their paycheck in exchange for middling infrastructure and pitiful public schools while simultaneously putting its finger on the scale of a wildly inflated housing market. The exodus will only pick up steam unless policymakers get their act together.

brightball 5y ago
I’ve long suspected that the Democratic obsession with federal policy is to try to reduce the appeal of other states where companies may want to move. It’s often seemed like people in California would prefer that a manufacturing operations operate in Asia and come through their ports rather than operate in the middle/south US.
- outside1234 5y ago
  I don't understand any of that - if anything - the opposite is true.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- SavantIdiot 5y ago
  Naw, Cali just wants clean air and water, and manufacturing doesn't want to pay to not screw the planet. That's why companies pillage Asia: their environment is for sale to the lowest bidder. Capitalism without regulation, baby! You're making the same conservative argument about wages: if you pay a living wage companies will flee. No, if a company can't pay a living wage, it shouldn't exist. Likewise, if a company can't manufacture products without destroying the environment, it shouldn't manufacture those products. I'm just a conservative. A nature conservative.

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gautamcgoel 5y ago

What I'm really curious about is what happens to Austin (and to a lesser extent, Atlanta, Raleigh, Denver, SLC etc). Does Austin become the next Bay Area/next Seattle? Crazy high housing prices, and high homelessness/crime? If so, how long does that take, and what happens to native Austinites? If not, what prevents history from repeating itself?

nine_k 5y ago
This being Texas, I suppose Austin has fewer restrictions on new development, so housing prices may be less crazy. To say nothing of taxes, which leave more of your wages to pay the rent.
- redisman 5y ago
  Austin also has hundreds of miles of land around it in all directions. Coastal cities are always expensive because of the geographical barriers causing over half of potential lands to be water and having a lot of bottlenecks to get into the city
- gopalv 5y ago
  > which leave more of your wages to pay the rent. Austin has crazy property taxes in comparison to CA, which is where they get you. 2.5% tax rate evaluated for the property prices annually, so retiring on a fixed income in Austin is a tiny bit harder than in CA (that's the real goal of Prop 13). Income taxes are easier to think about, because it goes to zero when your income drops, but property taxes based on the unrealized value of the house is completely out of your control. The homestead exemption does apply, but Prop 13 is by far the superior option for an owner, though what Austin does is better for the government's fiscal policy.
  - thephyber 5y ago
    > the superior option for an owner Agree with you, but I would guess most of the Gigafactory workers who haven’t exercised stock options probably can’t afford to own in the Bay Area. While Prop 13 probably filters down to renters in reduced rent, the supply/demand issues for housing is still pretty out of whack even with all of the new units in Milpitas. Also Prop 13 has second order effects that keep older empty nester boomers in a large house even though they would otherwise downsize if they didn’t lose such a generous benefit.

Apocryphon 5y ago

The official reason is because of housing: "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." But, he added, "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." https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/tesla-moves-headquarters-from-california-to-texas/ar-AAPfM7I https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/tesla-moves-headqu...

gfitz 5y ago
I don’t think housing would be the “official” reason as Elon is keenly aware of how hard it is to buy a house in central Texas right now. Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-austin-texas-housing-tesla-spacex-boring-job-postings-2021-4 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-austin-texas-housi...
- Johnny555 5y ago
  As the official spokesperson for the company, if Musk says it's "housing", then housing is the official reason. It may not be the real reason (which probably has more to do with his feelings about California in general and maybe proximity to SpaceX's Texas facilities), but it's the official reason.
- Mountain_Skies 5y ago
  That's temporary and the company has to look at things long term. Austin doesn't have the geographical barriers that the Bay Area has. If the building supplies and labor are available, Austin can sprawl out in pretty much any direction, though obviously transportation eventually becomes an issue.
- CalChris 5y ago
  Compared to the Peninsula, Austin is basically free. Median home price in Austin is $575,000. Median home price in Palo Alto, where the current Tesla HQ is, is $3,488,610.

pdq 5y ago

This is mostly symbolic so far as Tesla doesn’t even have the factory ready. Elon has options to exercise in Q4 before they expire, which will realize a substantial capital gain. By moving both personally and his business to Texas, he is likely avoiding California state income tax and capital gains, since Texas has neither. I’d say that’s bad faith, given how much California has subsidized his companies.

ricardobeat 5y ago
How much has California subsidized his companies?
panopticon 5y ago
I think California uses an "allocation ratio" to determine how much he will owe when he exercises those options [1], so he's not getting away tax-free. 1: https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/misc/1004.html https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/misc/1004.html

unclebucknasty 5y ago

This would be a complete non-story if not for the propaganda-driven political climate that needlessly and divisively pits "red states" against "blue states".

muzz 5y ago
Not sure why this comment is being down-voted, but I do agree with it somewhat. As an outsider, I see other states like Washington state also having no state income tax, but none of the kind of writing when companies move there or form there instead of California.

cjensen 5y ago

When CEOs move, they often move their headquarters closer to where they live. Somehow Tesla managed to survive all the problems of California until shortly after Musk moved to Texas. Folks talking about the advantages and disadvantages of California vs Texas may be overthinking this.

pmorici 5y ago
Wonder if it had anything to do with this… https://mobile.twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1446251762499743750 https://mobile.twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/14462517624...
- andyxor 5y ago
  or this https://nypost.com/2021/10/05/tesla-ordered-to-pay-137m-to-ex-worker-over-racist-work-culture/ https://nypost.com/2021/10/05/tesla-ordered-to-pay-137m-to-e...
  - semiquaver 5y ago
    > federal court
    - andyxor 5y ago
      San Francisco jury
- tshaddox 5y ago
  A childish Twitter exchange from May 2020? I doubt it.
  - valparaiso 5y ago
    People vote for such leftists who are corrupt and sponsored by Oil companies, like in this particular example. Proposition 47, taxes on whites for reparations and so on - Commifornia gets what it should - people are leaving.

andyxor 5y ago

makes sense, especially after $137M court order over restroom graffiti

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outside1234 5y ago

Will the women have to wear Handmaid's bonnets to work?

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paxys 5y ago

Whenever I read news like this I can never figure out what moving a company's headquarters actually means. Musk has already been living in Texas for a while. Tesla already has sizable operations there (both offices and factories). The company is registered in Delaware, so legally this change means nothing. They aren't going to fire employees in California or force them to move (in fact Musk said that they will continue to expand their Bay Area staff). They will continue to pay (or not pay) taxes exactly the same as before. So, besides a press release what is the change exactly? It's also funny that Tesla still can't sell their cars directly to customers in Texas.

zeruch 5y ago
It's a PR move to cow CA politicians to be more amenable to C-suites without challenge. It's theater. Petty, obstinate, twattish theater.
- philwelch 5y ago
  Those poor, powerless, persecuted politicians.
  - vkou 5y ago
    Compared to billionaires (who tend to retain their power and money, regardless of where public opinion stands on them), that's a not a wrong set of adjectives to describe most of them.
  - SauciestGNU 5y ago
    Politicians are at least theoretically accountable to an electorate, whereas egomaniacal billionaires are accountable to nobody.
    - FredPret 5y ago
      uhhh... they are accountable to every one of their clients, every time those clients make a purchase. For almost all billionaires, that's a far larger constituency and a much more frequent and efficient selection process compared to elections every x years by the 30% of the population who bother to vote. As soon as they stop performing, the money stops rolling in.

outside1234 5y ago

The total tax burden in Texas is 8.19% vs. California at 9.48%. The reason we pay close to 50% in California is that people are paid much much much more here. This is a problem you want to have. ref: https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494 https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-bur...

m0zg 5y ago

100% predictable. They'll eventually move factories there as well, at least the ones where there are a lot of employees. CA is downright abusive to businesses. Only the highest margin Silicon Valley style businesses (which Tesla isn't) can survive in such a hostile regime, and only out of necessity - because that's where talent happens to live. As talent distributes more and more and companies move out, CA will run out of other people's money. Happens every time. That's why they're planning a wealth tax which you'll continue to pay for 10 years after you move out.

sanderjd 5y ago

... I honestly thought this already happened. Was that some other Musk company?

trhway 5y ago

I think it hints SpaceX mega IPO - with the usual actors making moves to tax unrecognized gains it is a preparation move ahead of it.

m4rtink 5y ago

With these moves I understand the companies might have good reasons for that (costs, nu-favourable laws, etc.) but it always bothers me what happens to the employees ? Do they just "raise the anchor" and move with the company (if they do actually physically relocate, which does not seem to be really the case in this instance) ? Maybe that's normal in the US but the though of having to leave your friends, parts of family family, house/flat and familiar environment in general because your company decided to relocate somewhere else is frightening! Of maybe that's just my central-European perspective.

ur-whale 5y ago
> Of maybe that's just my central-European perspective. This kind of sedentary thinking is one of the many reasons why there aren't any Tesla-like companies in Europe.
oxplot 5y ago
> it always bothers me what happens to the employees In this particular case, not much. They are expanding their factory in California. They are not moving all their operations.

didibus 5y ago

I know some people like to make this political, and I know that the real reason is probably a simple mix of cheaper land, lower taxes and thus hoping to raise profits, but I personally think this is a great thing. California is saturated, it's nice to distribute things amongst the states more evenly. There's already so many people and high value tech companies in California.

asdff 5y ago

Anyone have a running list of enormously rich people moving from California to Texas to avoid being taxed on a windfall and ostensibly justifying it with insert reason here? So far I have Joe Rogan with his spotify deal and now Musk with some of his options coming up for payday.

boringg 5y ago
The plan was hatched when they smoked that joint together. Great state to move to if you want to avoid taxes on capital gains and if you want to build factories doing whatever the heck you want with no worker protections. If you really think of it - one of the main reasons Musk started in CA was because thats where his client base was to get the homegrown advantages for clientbase, talent and green benefits/cred. Now since his base has moved globally, he is moving to the lowest cost of operations (read: Texas). And to be fair - it would be very difficult to upsize any of his manufacturing capabilities in the bay area. The fact that he even has a major facility there is kind of impressive.
paxys 5y ago
Both will have to pay CA taxes regardless. The California tax board does not mess around. Rich people are generally more afraid of them than the IRS (which has become toothless in recent years).
- aaron_m04 5y ago
  I'm going to need a source on the IRS becoming toothless.
- asdff 5y ago
  Rogan won't have to pay california income taxes if he's left the state and a resident of texas when he is paid income from spotify. This move saved him 13 million dollars (1). If musk moves before he vests options he's not getting taxed by the state of california for vesting in texas. https://www.newsweek.com/joe-rogan-moving-texas-87-million-tax-breaks-1520739 https://www.newsweek.com/joe-rogan-moving-texas-87-million-t...

potiuper 5y ago

The https://www.tesla.com/contact https://www.tesla.com/contact page should have been updated at the same time as the shareholder meeting announcement as it states the HQ is still in CA.

cletus 5y ago

Here's another point to consider: the Trump tax "cuts" in 2017 were in fact a giant middle finger to college-educated workers in coastal blue states, in three major ways: 1. The $200-500k Federal tax bracket actually went up; 2. Loss of the SALT deduction. There are 9 states without state income tax. Most of them are red (Washington is a notable exception). This disproportionately hits blue states; and 3. Reducing the cap for the mortgage deduction, which again only affects expensive states. We have a hung Senate, essentially. A better description is to say that it is controlled by Charles Koch, who owns Joe Machin and the Republican Party. So these tax hikes on blue states haven't been rolled back under Biden because of Charles Koch, basically. In the proposed bill, the SALT deduction isn't getting reinstituted, the mortgage cap is the same and the corporate tax cuts (you know, the ones that will trickle down) are only getting partially rolled back. And even that might not pass. But what this means is that there is now a huge financial incentive for workers in California and New York in particular to move south. Hell, it was a significant factor in me moving from NYC to Florida, as an example. But I wonder if the unintended consequence of McConnell's and Trump's giant middle finger to the blue states could be the migration of left-leaning voters to Texas, Florida and even Tennessee and Georgia (GA has a state income tax but Atlanta is cheap compared to CA/NY). Perhaps Tesla's move is part of that trend. It would be entertaining, to say the least, if this hastened the political extinction of the party of Trump. The trends were such that Texas is likely to be a battleground state in ~10 years as it is. I can but hope.

vadym909 5y ago

I'm glad with all these tech companies moving to Texas, it is very likely to go Blue next election!

paxys 5y ago
It’ll still be a while considering they have passed a bunch of laws making it hard for blue voters to actually vote.
rexreed 5y ago
Combined with the demographic changes, Texas is sure to go blue. However, the blue party doesn't really seem to be a homogeneous philosophy. Same with the red party. Maybe we'll finally see a challenge from a credible third party that will take the center and leave the fringes for the red and blue.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

EastOfTruth 5y ago

Getting closer to the launch pads?

ab_testing 5y ago

I think that people living in these high tax and spend states are starting to ask that what are they getting for paying these high taxes. For example New York spends 9000 per person as part of their budget whereas Texas spends around $3700 per resident. Are the services rendered in NY really 3x better than those in TX.

DoreenMichele 5y ago

California's housing issues have been compounded by the spate of fires in recent years and they have 12 percent of the overall population of the US but 25 percent of the homeless population. California's housing issues are complex and not likely to be remedied quickly. This sounds like a completely reasonable plan at first glance.

ycui1986 5y ago

So Tesla moved their headquarter to a state that they cannot even sell their cars directly.

chasd00 5y ago

As long as the California refugees stay in Austin and nowhere else the it’ll be fine. The problem is they bring all the issues they’re running from with them.

winkeyless 5y ago
Which issues are specific to “them”?

guymcgwire 5y ago

Right now there are a total of 5 houses or townhouses under $2.5M listed for sale in Palo Alto with the cheapest being a cute 1200 sq ft 3BD/2BA house for the low price of $1.68M. The Palo Alto/Los Altos/West Menlo Park areas have fought hard to prevent housing development (NIMBY!). Recently a small number of luxury homes were built in the Barron Park part of Palo Alto. The homes sold quickly for $4.5M and up. Meanwhile, on the same small street in Barron Park, there are currently five homeless people living out of their cars and three trailer homes. They use the adjacent park's open public bathroom. I don't think the departure of Tesla HQ will have much of an impact on the town, which is a shame. Something bad is festering beneath the pristine surface here.

Dopameaner 5y ago

Note that Musk moved the HQ to Austin, one of the most liberal cities in the US and probably the most expensive in Texas, and not for example to Fort Worth, a conservative city next door to Dallas. The fact that TX doesn't have a State income tax or a carbon capture tax but California does, will have also been a factor I'm sure.

Bud 5y ago

I'm sure female employees of Tesla (and wives of male employees, and daughters of employees), will be just thrilled to move to Texas so they can be subjected to Texas' new reproductive rights system, derived from The Handmaid's Tale.

reayn 5y ago
It would take years of practice and a genuine passion to comment something more irrelevant than this.
lovecg 5y ago
Beliefs about abortion are not split along gender lines. This is mostly a religious vs. non-religious issue, not a male vs. female issue.

dmode 5y ago

I am curious if there are any Tesla Palo Alto employees here. Wondering if this is also paired with moving their eng team ? Otherwise, feels like a symbolic move by Elon almost as a response to the factory shutdown last year. He also said that they are expanding Fremont production and they recently announced a new factory in Lathrop. Weird move, but whatever

myself248 5y ago

I mean, if they want cheaper housing and plenty of space for factories, they could always look at Michigan. But then they'd have to make cars that understand ice and snow, and autopilot is much easier to sell if they can pretend freezing weather doesn't exist....

arcanon 5y ago

If I were a republican in tx I would be thinking about how to gerrymander this new population of blue voters.

b20000 5y ago

zero fucks given

andrei512 5y ago

tim333 5y ago
https://archive.ph/TU9xO https://archive.ph/TU9xO Of course that message actually means our European visitors aren't that important to us.
tdrdt 5y ago
Well they aren't wrong. They protect important visitors.
- pogorniy 5y ago
  Corporate talk: say correct things and do what you want

drcongo 5y ago

There goes the neighborhood.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

It would be interesting if these huge companies started funding the creation of new cities in Nebraska or something. Somewhere with tons of land, centrally located, they could fund some amazingly large airports to get anywhere…

snypher 5y ago
What could go wrong? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

xtat 5y ago

Great move. The Bay Area "peak" is starting to feel like a long time ago.