Elon Musk is moving two more of his companies out of California. File picture: Paul Hennessy / NurPhoto via AFP
Elon Musk has finally had it with California.
The South African-born tech mogul announced on Tuesday that he plans to move the headquarters of two more of his companies, Space X and X (formerly Twitter), to Texas over a new transgender law.
“This is the final straw,” Musk announced on X after California’s Governor Gavin Newsom signed a controversial bill that prevents schools from forcing teachers to inform parents about changes to a student’s gender identity when they are noticed at school.
This is the final straw.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 16, 2024
Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas. https://t.co/cpWUDgBWFe
Musk blamed this law and “many that preceded it” for the move, which will see SpaceX relocating from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase Texas, and social media platform X from San Francisco to Austin.
"Have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building," Musk additionally wrote in reference to the current San Francisco premises.
The billionaire has already moved Tesla’s headquarters from California to Austin, Texas, in 2021, although the electric carmaker still has its engineering headquarters in California.
Interestingly, Musk’s estranged daughter is reportedly transgender, and he blames their rift as well as her “far left” political views on her California private school education, AFP reports.
He has also been highly critical of the use of “preferred pronouns” and the “woke” agenda in general.
In an interview with The Babylon Bee last year, Musk said that left-leaning policies have transformed California from a land of opportunity to a land of “over-regulation, over-litigation and scorn”.
In the same interview, the billionaire described wokeness as “divisive, exclusionary and hateful” because it gave mean people a shield to be mean and cruel, armoured in false virtue.
Musk, an ardent supporter of Donald Trump and the US Republican Party, has become a fan of Texas in recent years, largely due to its conservative politics and liberal tax laws.