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SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- threatofrain 2y agoThis is the tweet in question that Musk claims is the final straw. https://x.com/Jason/status/1813247051804574031 https://x.com/Jason/status/1813247051804574031
- janice1999 2y agoMaybe I'm naive but I was expecting something tax or regulation related.
- ls612 2y agoThis is personal for him since his kid came out as trans a few years ago. That was when his political shift really started in earnest.
- hobotime 2y ago[flagged]
- wilg 2y agoWish they allowed emoji on HN so I could send you an eyeroll emoji.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- qsdf38100 2y agoHow many kids does he have?
- clipsy 2y agoGiven his proclivity for keeping them secret and out of wedlock, how would anyone know?
- quantified 2y agoClaims 12 so far.
- haliskerbas 2y agoSure but in capitalism you have to do right by your shareholders and a personal gripe against some kid related thing isn’t directly shareholder related. So are we doing snowflake feelings capitalism now? Or delivering shareholder value?
- krapp 2y agoMusk does "whatever he damn well feels like" capitalism. He made a barely driveable eyesore and deathtrap that would have put any other company out of business, just because he wanted to make a future car. He burned $44 billion just to buy the social media platform he blames for making his daughter trans and redpill it to spite "the wokes." He couldn't care less about shareholders. He's a manchild playing with toys.
- Gud 2y agoAs well as jump starting two of the most important technologies in the last 30 years, cheap access to space and electric cars.
- krapp 2y agoAre you one of those people who believes Elon Musk built everything by hand in a cave with scraps or something? Musk invested in technologies other people were working on and companies other people started, and hired other people who made it all work (often, given anecdotal reports, in spite of him.) Let's please stop pretending none of that would have been possible without some singular genius on his part.
- Gud 2y agoNo. I doubt those people exist.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> Let's please stop pretending none of that would have been possible without some singular genius on his part Sure, granted. The claim isn't re-usable rockets and mass-market EVs aren't possible without Musk. It's that it wouldn't be reality at scale today. Musk has a rare combination of leadership, management and political ability that lets him coordinate large groups of people and capital on resource-intensive, long-term, long-shot goals; achieve those goals; and make money on it, thereby making the process repeatable. That doesn't excuse his nonsense public behaviour. But that behaviour, in turn, doesn't erase his accomplishments.
- threatofrain 2y agoA company move like this has likely gone through plenty of discussion with internal stakeholders. I wouldn't expect big company moves like this to be measured on externally visible incentives and costs. Just as I wouldn't expect any big customer of AWS to pay the externally visible price tag. But we aren't privy to such things, and what remains of messaging is communication to people like us. Musk decided that putting a spotlight on trans youth would be the content of such messaging. Of course another possibility is that just like Twitter, Musk ignores high level advice and does whatever he wants.
- jedberg 2y agoIf you talk to anyone who has worked for Musk, they will tell you that he most likely woke up, saw the news, and decided to move HQ without talking to anyone. The employees, including the ones who would have to plan all the logistics, probably found out from his tweet.
- Yawrehto 2y agoOh, Libs of TikTok. The one run by that conspiracy theorist insurrectionist. Who also doesn't seem to understand that Trump will not help Orthodox Jews (she claims to be one, in the same way that Bible-beating evangelicals claim to be Christian).
- numbers 2y agois Starbase, Texas a real place?
- eco 2y agoUnofficially, but they are going through the motions to make it official. The county has passed resolutions supporting it but I'm not sure if they've actually started the process of formally incorporating it.
- Mountain_Skies 2y agoCurious if it ends up being patterned on Reedy Creek, Florida.
- mikece 2y agoIs that where their launch facility is (Boca Chica, iirc)?
- yedava 2y agoIf a student wants to come out as gay and doesn't want to tell their parents, do schools inform the parents? Why should there be separate rules for identifying as transgender? Also, given Texas's draconian laws around reproductive health, how is moving to Texas any better?
- Mountain_Skies 2y agoMusk has been consistent in his calls to increase birth rates.
- bryanlarsen 2y agoThat's OK, he balances it out by opposing laws that decrease teen suicide rates.
- mikece 2y agoHe doesn't just talk the talk in that department though there's a big difference between spawning a child process and being a good father.
- halfmatthalfcat 2y agoThe population of Earth is already debatably unsustainable and solving the immediate demographic issues of the US is easier solved through immigration rather than increasing the birth rate, which is politically ironic for Elon. His position makes no sense.
- yedava 2y agoMusk is presumably is speaking for SpaceX families and moving to Texas can endanger their lives. If Musk said this wasn't about families, but only about his political ideology, it would be different.
- fred_is_fred 2y agoThis could be done by maternity/paternity leave, better daycare options, and universal health care. Musk will support none of those, but will support the options that reduce freedom and choices.
- mikece 2y agoElon isn't the first and certainly won't be the last CEO to move their company/companies from high-tax, business-unfriendly States like California, Illinois, and New York to Texas. The only thing that would concern me as an investor is how heavily that will put strain on ERCOT and the Texas electrical grid... as well as home prices and congested infrastructure. Texas is likely to have the problem of people fleeing that state because it gets overrun by people from out of state buying homes sight-unseen for 30% over asking. Careful what you ask for, Texas...
- silverquiet 2y agoLifelong Texan here. I believe Tesla already moved engineering to Austin and then back to California. Texas has problems and politics I personally find atrocious, but there are some advantages too. Building homes is doable here (often done by crews of questionable immigration status; for sure Spanish is the primary language used) to the point that prices in Austin have actually seen declines recently. And ERCOT seems to be doing ok these days - they keep quiet about it for political reasons I'm sure, but Texas has tons of renewables and is using batteries now to level supply out as needed. And the plans are to keep adding renewables and batteries.
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- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- lulzury 2y ago> often done by crews of questionable immigration status; for sure Spanish is the primary language used Put directly, it seems like housing is subsidized by the use of underpaid, disenfranchised, often exploited undocumented immigrant labor
- quantified 2y agoNot particularly unique to Texas.
- dredmorbius 2y agoAlso covered by the Guardian: <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/16/spacex-x-headquarters-elon-musk https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/16/s...>
- wilg 2y agoI'm very interested to see how his MAGA heel turn affects his companies. He is undoubtably a very high performer and makes very high performing companies that good people want to work for, and they make extremely good products. But the first thing out of everyone's mouth about a Tesla car is their opinion on Elon, and it seems very unlikely he's going to get more appealing to people who aren't Republicans.
- ren_engineer 2y agofor SpaceX it's a bet that if Trump wins they will get far more lobbying power for contracts and Boeing/Lockheed will be even more screwed. And while consumer opinion on Tesla and Starlink will be hurt, Elon is probably hoping to get Trump to tariff Chinese electric car competitors massively so his only competition will be domestic
- wilg 2y agoBiden already tariffed Chinese EVs! https://apnews.com/article/biden-china-tariffs-electric-vehicles-evs-solar-2024ba735c47e04a50898a88425c5e2c https://apnews.com/article/biden-china-tariffs-electric-vehi... And I doubt SpaceX needs much more lobbying power for contracts. I think it's pretty clear Elon's interest here is not in minor lobbying benefits but is a genuine reflection of how he's ass deep in the culture war.
- scarab92 2y agoI wouldn’t be surprised if Trump starts a second space race, to put the first human on Mars, and funnels billions into SpaceX to achieve it.
- dmode 2y ago[flagged]
- sidibe 2y agoWhat a lovely and urgent reason to have to relocate your family. Though I guess at this point if you still work for him you probably have adopted some of his worldview
- netsharc 2y agoI wonder how many of his employees will quit instead of relocate (e.g. if you have a spouse who can't relocate that easily, or plenty of other reasons why relocation is massively inconvenient).. won't this endanger SpaceX' mission? (I don't give a shit about Twitter, that can burn to the ground). And I'd bet some money that Elon hasn't done an analysis which key people SpaceX will lose by moving HQs.
- cirrus3 2y agoI don't understand the urgency here... are there tons of SpaceX employees who are thinking "oh shit, if my kid tells the school they are transgender, the school won't be able to tell me"? > if you still work for him you probably have adopted some of his worldview Yea, maybe... tbh I would expect kinda the opposite given that I assume a lot of the employees are relatively young and intelligent.
- cirrus3 2y agoI don't understand why it is bad thing to prevent schools from outing kids to their parents. What am I missing or misunderstanding here?
- Yawrehto 2y agoBecause the parents may be really transphobic and it might put the kid's life in danger.
- cirrus3 2y agoExactly... so, you prevent the schools from telling them in the moment. The kid knows best how and when to navigate that, not the school. Your comment hasn't clarified this for me =\
- ianburrell 2y agoFrom the Guardian article: "the bill will prohibit school policies that require parents to be alerted if their child wishes to change pronouns or identifies as transgender." Some school districts had implemented policies that forced teachers to out students to parents even when they know that would be problem. This law prevents that but still allows them to notify parents.
- cirrus3 2y agoRight, this seems good to me, or at least better. At least they are not required to out them anymore. Why is Elon so upset about this?
- rsynnott 2y agoYou're not missing anything. It's a good law. Naughty Old Mr Car is full in on the bonkers conspiratorial transphobia stuff, these days, though; you can't expect him to make a lot of sense on these things.
- fragsworth 2y agoThis is a typical knee-jerk reaction to a perfectly reasonable law that gets taken out of context and twisted to become ragebait. The law applies to all LGBTQ+ identities, the most common being lesbian/gay, but trans is also part of it - and the trans part was singled out on twitter for some reason. The law does not even prevent schools from outing kids. It prevents schools from FORCING employees to do it (with threat of losing their job if they don't). School employees CAN STILL out kids to their parents in California. They just don't have to as a policy anymore. Which is perfectly reasonable, because sometimes the school employees see kids with extremely homophobic and abusive parents. Nobody wants to out a kid to parents like that, and without this law, school employees get put in a position of asking themselves "Do I out the kid to their parents, who will likely beat them? Or do I refuse and lose my job?"