ON Thursday, Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk said that the electric carmaker plans to move its headquarters from Silicon Valley’s Palo Alto, California to Austin, Texas, where it is building a massive car and battery manufacturing complex.
Musk said Tesla will continue to operate its electric vehicle factory in California, and that he even plans to try and increase production there by 50 percent.
Musk said during the AGM: “Just to be clear, though, we will be continuing to expand our activities in California. So this is not a matter of Tesla leaving California.”
He said: “I’m excited to announce that we’re moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas.” “This is not a matter of, sort of, Tesla leaving California, he said, saying it plans to increase output from its main California factory and Nevada factory by 50%.”
Musk previously said that Tesla chose to build in Austin over other locations because employees were more willing to move there.
Musk said: “There’s a limit to how big you can scale it in the Bay Area. It’s tough for people to afford houses (in California). Tesla’s Austin location is also right near the local airport, which Musk said is convenient he added.
In a statement Musk said: We’re going to create an ecological paradise here.. on the Colorado River, a reference to how the company plans to open up parts of the land it bought to the public. Tesla is also looking at doing more major installations of battery storage like the one first reported by Bloomberg earlier this year.
Tesla started building its next US Gigafactory outside Austin in 2020 and has made an incredible amount of progress in the intervening year.
Tesla joins Oracle, HP and Toyota Motor in moving U.S. headquarters to Texas from California, which has relatively high taxes and living costs. While Silicon Valley also is a hive of development of new ideas and companies, Texas is known for cheaper labor and less stringent regulation.
