AUSTIN – (Realty News Report) – Tesla, led by CEO Elon Musk, announced it is relocating its headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas.
“I’m excited to announce we are moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas,” Musk said at the company’s annual shareholders meeting Thursday.
Tesla is building a large electric vehicle manufacturing campus on the east side of Austin on a roughly 2,000-acre tract bordering the Colorado River. The site provides ample room for a giga-factory as well as space for a headquarters campus and additional facilities.
Reasons for the Move
Musk cited California’s high housing costs as one factor in the decision to move Tesla’s headquarters to Texas. Tensions also rose last year after disputes with California officials over pandemic-related restrictions that affected Tesla’s Fremont factory.
California-to-Texas Migration
Several major companies have recently relocated headquarters to Texas, including CBRE, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Oracle, Charles Schwab and the AECOM design and engineering firm. Tesla employs more than 70,000 people worldwide.
In addition to Tesla, Musk runs SpaceX operations in Texas and owns The Boring Company, which has proposed a tunnel train project in the San Antonio area to link the airport with downtown.
Plant Details and Economic Impact
The new $1.1 billion Tesla EV plant on Austin’s east side is expected to employ about 5,000 workers with an average annual pay of $47,147. Roughly 65 percent of those workers are projected to be blue-collar employees without a college degree.
The facility will span approximately 4.5 million square feet and will be located near the Colorado River in southeastern Travis County, close to Highway 130 and Harold Green Road. The plant is planned to produce the Cybertruck and other electric vehicle models.
Tesla secured a substantial incentive package for the project, including about $61 million in tax breaks from the Del Valle school district and Travis County. The company closed the land purchase last year, paying $97 million for roughly 2,100 acres previously owned by Martin Marietta, a North Carolina-based cement and aggregates company that had used the property for gravel mining.
Musk described the factory grounds as a park-like “ecological paradise,” envisioning streams with fish and pathways for hikers, although the property was previously used for gravel extraction.
Regional Development
The Austin area is also a candidate for a major semiconductor project by Samsung, with Taylor, Texas, among the potential locations under consideration.
Oct. 8, 2021 Realty News Report Copyright 2021
For more about Texas real estate, see the book Houston 2020: America’s Boom Town – An Extreme Close Up by Ralph Bivins. Available on Amazon.
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File: Tesla Moving HQ to Texas From California
Image: Cybertruck. Courtesy Tesla Inc.
File: Elon Musk. Del Valle. Tesla Moving HQ to Texas From California. Highway 130.