Elon Musk has doubled down on his commitment to Texas, promising to move SpaceX's massive headquarters to the Lone Star State from its longtime home in Hawthorne, California.
Musk later said he would move the headquarters of his social media platform X from San Francisco, California, to Austin, Texas, where his other company, Tesla, is headquartered. SpaceX will be headquartered at Starbase, where the company operates a massive Starship manufacturing and testing site.
He posted to X that he was “tired of running in and out of buildings to escape violent drug gangs.” Regarding the SpaceX move, Musk said the “final straw” was the passage of a California bill signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom this week that prohibits schools from creating or enforcing policies requiring employees to disclose a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to anyone without parental consent. Musk said the law, along with “many others that have come before,” are “offensive to both families and businesses.”
Musk’s announcement has precedent: Tesla announced in 2021 that it would move its headquarters from California to Austin, Texas, but the automaker still has a significant presence in the Golden State, including an assembly plant in Fremont.
Musk has already tied his company to the Lone Star State in other ways. SpaceX officially changed its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas in February, in response to a Delaware judge’s ruling on Musk’s $56 billion compensation package as Tesla CEO. That same month, Musk also moved his brain implant company from Delaware to Nevada. Last month, Tesla shareholders voted to not only re-approved the massive compensation package, but also re-incorporated the company from Delaware to Texas.
SpaceX moved into the former Northrop Corporation facility, which has grown to over 1 million square feet in 2007. Southern California has historically been a major aerospace hub, and that identity remains intact today, with companies ranging from giants like Boeing to dozens of startups calling Los Angeles County home.
X, formerly Twitter, has been headquartered in San Francisco since its founding in 2006.
The broader implications of the proposed move for the two companies are unclear. For SpaceX, Hawthorne is not only its headquarters, but also home to a massive manufacturing facility and mission control facility for its Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft. But if SpaceX and X follow Tesla’s path, much of the status quo will likely remain intact.
Nonetheless, Texas Gov. Greg Abbot welcomed Musk's statement, saying it solidified his state's status as a “leader in space exploration.”
