Electric vehicle maker Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) says it is moving its corporate headquarters to Austin, Texas, where a new factory for the company’s Model Y and Cybertruck is nearing completion.
Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk made the announcement of the corporate move during a shareholder meeting held at the new Austin plant.
Tesla has been based in Palo Alto, California, the Silicon Valley suburb that is home to Stanford University and several venture capital firms, since its founding in 2003.
But as the electric vehicle manufacturer has grown from scrappy start-up to the world’s most valuable automaker, Texas has become its main operating centre in the U.S.
Musk moved to Texas himself to focus on two big priorities for his companies: SpaceX’s new Starship vehicle and Tesla’s Gigafactory. Texas has no personal income tax, while California imposes the highest personal income tax in the United States on wealthy residents.
In 2010, Tesla purchased an abandoned automotive plant across the San Francisco Bay in Fremont, California. Roughly 10,000 people work at the Fremont plant, and hundreds of other Tesla employees work at showrooms, service centers and offices throughout the region.
Tesla’s relationship with California soured in the spring of 2020 during the first wave of the pandemic. When Alameda County shutdown orders stopped production at Tesla’s plant in Fremont, Musk openly defied public health officials by closing late and reopening early, blasting the rules as "fascist."
