Musk: SpaceX is moving its headquarters from California to Texas
Because of the bill signed into law this week by California governor Gavin Newsom that allows schools to groom little kids sexually and hide that fact from their parents, Elon Musk announced today that SpaceX is moving its headquarters from California to Texas. From Musk’s tweet:
This is the final straw.
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.
Musk also noted that X will also relocate from California to Texas.
If you establish a government that oppresses and encourages insane behavior, you will discover that people will flee your tyranny enthusiastically. The Democrats who run California have achieved this goal quite skillfully. May they enjoy their enduring bankruptcy.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Because of the bill signed into law this week by California governor Gavin Newsom that allows schools to groom little kids sexually and hide that fact from their parents, Elon Musk announced today that SpaceX is moving its headquarters from California to Texas. From Musk’s tweet:
This is the final straw.
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.
Musk also noted that X will also relocate from California to Texas.
If you establish a government that oppresses and encourages insane behavior, you will discover that people will flee your tyranny enthusiastically. The Democrats who run California have achieved this goal quite skillfully. May they enjoy their enduring bankruptcy.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
In separate, but relevant, news, the fine print at the bottom of the screen during a recent fast food commercial stated that prices may be higher in Alaska, Hawaii . . . and CALIFORNIA.
I had never before noticed such a disclaimer listing three states. The disclaimer had often been made for Alaska and Hawaii, and understandably so, given the higher transportation costs for the two states, but California is a new addition.
I would have to speculate this is due to the skyrocketing labor costs in California that are the direct result of its crazy increases to the minimum wage, as well as increases to the cost of doing business there as a result of more and more regulations.
What a culture shock the X employees will go through when they arrive in Texas.
What a culture shock the good people of Texas will experience when those X employees show up in Texas (although if they relocate to Austin they’ll fit right in).
This should not be surprising to anyone, really.
The industry has been anchored on the coasts for some time, FL and CA.
FL is a battle ground State. Currently very settled in GOP hands, but went for Obama both times, Clinton once, and Carter. And of course it almost went for Gore (but that is another story). Parts of FL has a few solid Democrat Congressional Districts, some flip regularly. Some solid Republican. Being able to get money and business there is key to every Administration, to try to buy that State every 4 years.
CA is Democrat (or worse?), with the GOP pushed to the fringes.
I always believed that the pressure on SpaceX from the Federal Gov, via FAA, Land Management, EPA, and these Environmental reviews were never about Musk, personally, but were actually to try to prevent TX from becoming the center of mass for the industry.
FL will always have the best launch locations, but most of the industrial part of this has always been Southern CA. Spacex, Rocketlab, Astra, ABL, Relativity, Virgin Orbit, and a few others, all in (or were in) CA. ULA a notable exception with HQ in CO. Firefly was ahead of the curve, in TX.
I believe it is also why they are considering additional launch sites at other bases in FL. With the growth, they want to keep the money in FL, and not allow any other state to gain a foothold. Especially one not as right leaning as TX.
It is about the money.
Just my 1.5 cents.
(And the other half penny, you asked? TAXED!)
Center of gravity, not mass. (I have my brain on a different project). Feel free to edit that.
SpaceX moving to TX from CA will be a process, not an event. And if Musk is completely serious about abandoning CA, the biggest move will have to involve abandoning Tesla’s Fremont works for some greenfield location or some major expansion of an extant location such as the TX or NV Gigafactories. Any of this will take awhile. All of it will take even longer.
One interesting question is going to be whether any of the smaller fry in the current SoCal NewSpace clusters in Hawthorne and Long Beach decide to follow suit. Many of these outfits were started by, or are heavy with senior management, that got their starts at SpaceX and maintain myriad informal – and even some formal – ties. Impulse and Vast come immediately to mind, but they are far from alone in being part of the SpaceX globular cluster.
Cybertech is incrementally abandoning NorCal. If NewSpace abandons SoCal, there isn’t going to be much left of the state given that its agricultural middle has already been disembowled. The main beneficiary of the Democratic Party’s destruction of CA seems likeliest to be TX with FL, NV and several other Southern or Southwestern states likely to also get some of the corporate refugees.
I haven’t heard anything from SpaceX on the Falcon 9 second-stage anomaly, which pulls a huge chunk out of our space capability. Have I missed it?
Davy Crockett talks geography
https://youtu.be/tJJ53F5BfzI
(3:50)
Ray Van Dune: I also have heard nothing yet. SpaceX has canceled all launches from its manifest through July 31st, suggesting it expects to resume launches then. We shall see.
I must correct myself. In looking at the launch scheduled this morning, SpaceX has posted its next launch on July 19th. I wonder if the FAA will let it launch as planned.
Bob, I just checked NSF before I added my question, so that flight must have been added to NSF Next Space Flight not very long ago. Hope that means it’s a go.
Would they perhaps be more restrictive to the manned Polaris Dawn mission scheduled for July 31?
Ray Van Dune: Refresh BtB. SpaceX is moving to get the FAA off its duff, and I have uploaded a post describing this.
The move from Cal to Texas will take a while.
The first things to do is to move the state of incorporation from California to Texas. This is different from moving the headquarters. The headquarters are the place paperwork is done the State of incorporation is the state that gets the corporate tax.
The next would be to offer the present cali employees the option of moving with the company to Texas. Personally most should make the move. Texas has a cheaper cost of living than Cali, just as much choice of entertainment and you can find a group of people you like. Texas is big. But Californians do have that bias against those they think lesser of, those fly over states.
Taking over or building a new headquarters is the easy part.
I personally would not have put X in Austin. That is the core of liberalism in Texas. I would have picked Fort Worth, Waco or San Antonio.
SpaceX changed their incorporation from Delaware to Texas in February of this year.
Thanks Wayne.
pzatchok-
-had to look that one up.
Does California have some sort of rule about advance notification to employees of potential mass layoffs?
I do think they have a notification period and I bet they also have a requirement to offer the jobs in the new place to the old employees first.
Though I do not think they are required to assist in the move to the new location.
pzatchok-
Ah,…
“Federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act,” at a minimum, plus anything else California might require.
In Michigan, they call it something else, but functionally the same with some added benefits.