In Tesla vs California, EV giant is shifting its headquarters to Texas

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said that the electric carmaker is planning to move its headquarters from Palo Alto, California to Austin in Texas, where it is already building a huge car and battery manufacturing facility. Musk, during the company's annual meeting, said, “I'm excited to announce that we're moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas," Reuters reported.

Tesla has now joined the likes of Oracle, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Toyota Motor in moving its US headquarters to Texas from California, as the latter has relatively high taxes and living costs. Even though the Silicon Valley is known as a hive of development of new ideas and companies, Texas is known for its cheaper labor and less stringent regulation.

However, Musk clarified that Tesla is not completely leaving California as it has plans to increase the output from its main California factory by 50 per cent.

Musk had himself moved to Texas from California in December last year to focus on the EV giant's new facility in the state as well as his SpaceX rocket company, which has a launch site in the southern tip of Texas. At the time, he had said that California had become complacent with its status as an economic giant and less attractive to him.

Last year, Tesla soured its relationship with California, when Musk threatened to move Tesla headquarters and future programs to Texas. This happened during a row over the closure of Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California due to coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

During the annual company meeting that took place in Tesla's Texas factory, Musk showed off a cowboy-style belt buckle with a text saying, "Don't Mess With T". Here, T stands for the Tesla logo. The phrase is based on a popular Texas anti-littering campaign, that reads, 'Don't Mess with Texas'.