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Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Elon Musk has announced that Tesla will be moving its headquarters from California to Texas. Musk, the chief executive of the electric car company, made the announcement Thursday afternoon during the annual stockholders meeting, stating the company's headquarters will relocate from Palo Alto to Austin.
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"I'm excited to announce that we're moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas," he said to cheers from the crowd.
He explained part of the reason for the relocation was the cost of affordable housing in and around Palo Alto as well as the long commutes of workers.
"We're taking it as far as possible, but there's a limit to how big you can scale it in the Bay Area," he said.
In Austin, where the shareholders meeting was held, their factory is a handful of minutes from the airport and 15 minutes from downtown, he said.
"It's going to be great," he said.
He explained the move doesn't mean Tesla is exiting California as they plan to expand their activities and output from their Fremont factory as well as their Nevada factory by 50%.
"We're just hitting the sides of the bowl," he said. "If you go to our Fremont factory, it is just jammed."
Austin Mayor Steve Adler tweeted that they "welcome Tesla home!"
"It's a tech company that creates the clean-manufacturing, middle-skill jobs Austin needs," he said. "We're one of the safest big cities, with a strong innovative, entrepreneurial, environmentally focused culture."
Tesla's announcement follows public feuding between the billionaire and California officials.
This past May, he threatened to move his headquarters to Texas and sued local officials after his Fremont facility was forced to shut down due to coronavirus restrictions.
"This is the final straw," he tweeted in May. "Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be [dependent] on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA."
Tesla is not the only tech company to move from California to Austin, Texas. Oracle announced it was moving in December, explaining doing so would put the company in the "best position" for growth.
