'Welcome to Texas': Tesla moves headquarters to Austin

Tesla officially confirmed on Thursday, Oct. 7 its plan to move its headquarters from the Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas.

The announcement came from Tesla CEO Elon Musk during the annual shareholders meeting, once held at the former headquarters in Palo Alto, California, which took place this year at its under-construction manufacturing plant just east of Austin, according to CultureMap Austin.

"Welcome to Texas @elonmusk," U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Houston) wrote in a tweet. 

Rumored as one of the deciding factors in the relocation of Tesla's headquarters is the very public disagreement between Musk and local public health officials in Palo Alto concerning COVID-19 restrictions that resulted in Tesla's Fremont factory to close temporarily, Markets Insider reported. Soon after, Musk said in May 2020 that he would move "HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately," an article from Business Insider reported. 

According to InsideEVs, Musk said that the company may also stop production at its Fremont, California location, but according to CultureMap Austin, Tesla actually plans to expand that location. 

Other clues to Musk's impending decision before it was confirmed came in the form of Tesla choosing Austin as the next U.S. manufacturing plant to build the Model Y cars in 2022, though the $1.1 billion plant is still under construction. 

Other hints continued further as Tesla offered up two press releases, one in September and one in early October, that were released from Austin rather than Palo Alto. Finally, Musk also relocated his charitable foundation to Texas in October of 2020 while also having moved there in December 2020, Markets Insider reported. 

Tesla's move to Texas marks the third-largest publicly traded company in the Austin area based on 2020 revenue in the state. Tesla's revenue in 2020 approached the $12 billion mark, according to CultureMap Austin. The other two companies are Dell and Oracle, with Dell ending 2020 at approximately $92.2 billion and Oracle with $39.1 billion. 

Oracle is another company that moved from California to Texas like Tesla has, and they are not the only two. In moving to Texas, Tesla seems to be following suit of other companies like Resonant and Sonim Technologies and Digital Realty who have also relocated to the state.

Musk is also the founder and CEO of SpaceX, located in Boca Chica, Texas, where he has his new home.