Musk is moving SpaceX and X to Texas

Musk made the announcements on his X social media site Tuesday, citing frustration over a new law in California related to transgender children in public schools. California became the first US state to ban school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents about changes to a student’s sexual orientation and gender identity.

“This is the final straw,” Musk said in the post announcing SpaceX’s relocation.

The move is the latest development in Musk’s shift toward the political right. In the past week, Musk offered a full-throated endorsement of former President Donald Trump in the upcoming US election, and will also donate tens of millions of dollars to Trump’s campaign every month. He has long criticized California’s liberal politics, and has threatened to pull X and his other businesses out of the state on numerous occasions. 

SpaceX’s headquarters is currently in Hawthorne, California, but the company has been building out a large facility in South Texas dubbed Starbase over the last few years. The site in Boca Chica is the primary location where SpaceX builds and launches its massive Starship rocket system, and the company recently added a massive warehouse factory at Starbase known as the Starfactory, which replaced many of the site’s production tents. 

X’s headquarters is currently in San Francisco, though the company put several floors of its main building up for lease last week. It was still expected to retain some of that space for employees. In January, X said it was planning to open a small office in Austin to help deal with content moderation problems. 

SpaceX has roughly 13,000 employees. Its Hawthorne facility has been the primary location for production and processing of the company’s Falcon 9 workhorse rocket, as well as the larger, more powerful Falcon Heavy rocket.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in an X post that the move “cements Texas as the leader in space exploration.”

The new California law may be personal for Musk. One of his eldest children went to court the day after they turned 18 in 2022 and changed their name, citing “gender identity and the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” according to court filings.

Musk also has several ties to Texas already. His electric car company, Tesla Inc., earlier this year moved its business incorporation to Texas from Delaware, and similarly moved its headquarters from California to Austin in 2021 amid frustration with pandemic lockdowns. 

But Tesla still has a sizable presence in the Golden State, with an engineering headquarters in Palo Alto. 

Musk also moved his personal residence to Texas several years ago.