Elon Musk vows to move X and SpaceX headquarters from California to Texas

Elon Musk has doubled down on his commitment to Texas, vowing to move SpaceX’s massive headquarters to the Lone Star State from its longtime headquarters 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.

“Enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts to get in and out of the building,” he wrote on X. Regarding SpaceX’s move, Musk said the “final straw” was the passage of a California bill signed by Governor Gavin Newsom this week that prohibits schools from creating or enforcing policies that would require employees to disclose students’ sexuality or gender identity to anyone without their consent — such as parents. Musk said this law, “and many other laws that came before it,” “attack both families and companies.”

Musk’s announcement follows a precedent. Tesla has announced it will move its headquarters from California to Austin, Texas, in 2021 — though the automaker still has a large footprint in the Golden State, including its assembly plant in Fremont.

Musk has already tied his companies to the Lone Star State in other ways, too: SpaceX officially changed its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas in February, a move made in response to a Delaware judge’s ruling on Musk’s $56 billion compensation package as chief executive at Tesla. That same month, Musk also moved his brain implant company from Delaware to Nevada. Last month, Tesla shareholders voted not only to re-approve the hefty pay package, but also to re-incorporate the company from Delaware to Texas.

SpaceX moved into the former Northrop Corporation plant in 2007, a campus that now spans over 1 million square feet. Southern California has historically been a major aerospace hub, and that identity remains true today, with everyone from large companies like Boeing to dozens of startups making their home in Los Angeles County.

X, formerly Twitter, was founded in 2006 and is headquartered in San Francisco.

The larger consequences of the proposed move for both companies are unclear. For SpaceX, Hawthorne is not only its headquarters, but also home to large production facilities for its Falcon rockets and Dragon spacecraft, as well as mission control. But if SpaceX and X go the way of Tesla, it’s likely the status quo will remain largely the same.

However, Texas Governor Greg Abbott praised Musk’s statement, saying it reinforces his state’s status as a “leader in space exploration.”