An Austin rancher has offered billionaire Elon Musk 100 acres of free ranch land if he brings Twitter’s headquarters to Central Texas.
Musk, the richest man in the world, struck a $44 billion deal this week to buy the social media company for $54.20 a share. The founder of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, space exploration company SpaceX and tunneling startup The Boring Company has relocated the bulk of his company operations to Texas in recent years amid a widespread corporate exit from the Bay Area.
There’s been much speculation that Twitter may leave its San Francisco corporate office under Musk’s leadership, and Austin rancher Jim Schwertner wants to help make that possible, Austonia reported.
“Elon, Move twitter to Schwertner, TX , 38 miles North of Austin and we will give you 100 Acres for FREE,” Schwertner tweeted.
Schwertner is president and CEO of Schwertner Farms, and he oversees 20,000 acres north of the Austin suburb of Georgetown. The land is about a 50-minute drive from downtown Austin. For reference, 100 acres is equivalent to 75 football fields.
A wave of corporate relocations and expansions has flooded the Austin metro in recent years as companies of all sizes and industry trade the coasts for Central Texas. Companies have filled downtown Austin towers, such as Meta’s 33-story lease at Sixth and Guadalupe, and large capital investments have targeted the outskirts of the city. For instance, Samsung Electronics is building a $17 billion chipmaking campus in the suburb of Taylor.
“This area is exploding and we want to be part of this explosive growth,” Schwertner told Austonia.
Musk also has a sizable real estate portfolio in Central Texas. The billionaire has more than 2,500 acres southeast of downtown Austin in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. Tesla built a $1.1 billion gigafactory on a small portion of the land, which is also the company’s headquarters. There has been much speculation about what else the billionaire has planned for the acreage, especially as his other companies plant roots in the region.
Demand for Texas ranch land has grown during the pandemic as well-heeled investors and developers purchase properties from long-time owners. The median price per acre in the Austin-Waco-Hill Country submarket rose 37.6 percent year over year, reaching $5,733 in the fourth quarter, according to the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. Sales volumes more than doubled over 2021 compared with 2019, the last full year prior to the pandemic.
[Austonia] — Kathryn Hardison
Read more
Commercial
Texas
Elon Musk wants to tunnel under Texas
Residential
New York
Where’s Elon? Maybe house-hunting in Texas