Tesla moves HQ to Texas

Tesla will move its headquarters from Palo Alto in Silicon Valley to Austin in Texas. Elon Musk made the announcement at Tesla’s annual general meeting, which was already held in Texas.

+ + Kindly see our update below + +

The move of the company’s headquarters to Texas has a history: As early as 2020, Elon Musk had threatened to move the headquarters in response to pandemic safety measures required by the state of California and questioned the future of the plant in Fremont. However, a more favourable tax rate may also helped narrow down the choice of headquarters as well.

Tesla will not withdraw completely from California, however, according to the newest information. The plant in Fremont will remain and will even be further expanded, as will the Gigafactory in Nevada: Production is to be increased by 50 per cent at both locations, as Musk explained.

Instead of anger about the authorities, Tesla now says that scaling the headquarters is the reason for the move: because of the extremely high real estate prices, it has become difficult for Tesla to continue scaling in the Bay Area in California and to find new employees. “It’s tough for people to afford houses, and lots of people have to come in from far away. We’re taking this as far as possible, but there’s a limit to how much you can scale in the Bay Area, ” Elon Musk said. “But here in Austin, the factory is five minutes from the airport and 15 minutes from downtown.” In Texas, however, not only is the cost of living lower for employees, as Tesla’s tax burden could also drop somewhat.

For Musk himself, the move of Tesla’s corporate headquarters also helps to bundle his companies: The space company ‘SpaceX’ already has a location in Texas, but its headquarters is still officially in Hawthorne, California. According to Teslarati, ‘The Boring Company’ will probably also move.

The assumption that Tesla could already announce the start of production of the Model Y in Texas in the course of the annual general meeting has not been confirmed. However, Musk expects that the first Model Y units can be manufactured in Texas before the end of the year.

Musk also noted that while production of 4680 cells will not begin soon in Texas, Tesla’s pilot line in California near the Fremont factory will have enough capacity for now. “We are making 4680 cells at our pilot plant in California, which is a large plant by normal standards. It is capable of 10 GWh per year,” Musk said. “That plant will be able to make more than enough cells for Giga Texas to scale Model Y production.”

Update 2 December 2021:

Tesla has now completed the announced relocation of its headquarters from Palo Alto in Silicon Valley to Austin in Texas. The new headquarters has been officially located next to the Gigafactory Texas since 1 December. The new address is 13101 Harold Green Road, Austin, Texas 78725.

On Google Maps, this address points to a location slightly outside the visible construction site. Since the mapping can still change somewhat for newly developed areas, it is also possible that this address is in the main Gigafactory Texas building.

Since the announcement at the AGM, there has been speculation as to whether the headquarters will be in the factory or in a separate building. Since Tesla does not comment further on this in its investor communication documents, apart from the address, there hasn’t been any official communication on this yet.

teslarati.com, update: electrek.co, tesla.com