Elon Musk says Tesla is moving HQ to Austin from Palo Alto, citing affordable housing, room to expand

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced Thursday that he is moving the company's headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, though he did not give a time frame for the move. "Just to be clear, though, we will be continuing to expand our activities in California," he said at a company shareholder meeting. "This is not a matter of Tesla leaving California." Musk said Tesla will expand its factory in Fremont, California, where more than 10,000 workers build the Model S, X, Y, and 3 vehicles.

Musk has been forecasting a move to Texas since May 2020, when he tweeted out his displeasure at California officials for COVID-19 safety precautions he said were hurting production. On Thursday, Musk suggested the move was due to size constraints at the Fremont plant and Tesla's Palo Alto headquarters, as well as the dearth of affordable housing in the Bay Area. "It's tough for people to afford houses and a lot of people have to come in from far away," he said. "There's a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area."

Tesla is building out a factory in Austin — he announced the move via livestream from the factory floor — and analysts noted that Musk has already moved to Texas and is growing his SpaceX operation on the Texas Gulf coast. But other Silicon Valley giants have also recently announced moves to Texas, including Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprises.

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