Elon Musk splits from California in protest of progressive politics

Elon Musk’s California split has turned into a double dip for Texas.

The mercurial serial entrepreneur and multibillionaire announced plans to shift the headquarters of X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, from Northern California and spacecraft developer and operator SpaceX from Southern California, according to a post on X by Musk.

X keeps its headquarters in San Francisco, while SpaceX is based in the Los Angeles suburb of Hawthorne.

Musk’s plans for X were no surprise. He’s been shrinking its office footprint in San Francisco since buying the company for $44 billion in 2022. Reports that X would officially move its headquarters out of San Francisco surfaced in Bay Area media last week, and The Real Deal quickly tracked the company’s destination to Austin.

Musk’s announcement that SpaceX would shift its headquarters to an outpost called “Starbase,” which the company has already established in Bolsa Chica, near Brownsville at the southern tip of Texas, came as a surprise.

Musk had previously set up headquarters or significant operations for several other enterprises in Texas, including electric vehicle maker Tesla and the Boring Company, which builds tunnels.

His latest moves carried political and social overtones thanks to Musk’s post, which took issue with California Gov. Gavin Newsom and the overwhelming Democratic state legislature over a law that prohibits public educators from notifying parents if and when their children adopt transgender identities at school.

Musk directly attributed the decision to uproot headquarters for the two companies to “this law and the many others that preceded it.” 

He said the move should be no surprise and predicted other companies would exit California.

“I did make it clear to Gov. Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children,” Musk said in another message.

Musk also recently signaled significant involvement in this year’s presidential election on behalf of Republican nominee Donald Trump, pledging to put $45 million a month to a political action committee seeking to return the former president to the White House between now and the election in early November.

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