Tesla Inc.
TSLA 0.30%
Chief executive Elon Musk said he has relocated to Texas, becoming one of the top executives to leave Silicon Valley during a coronavirus epidemic.
He said the move had been going on for months and California lamented that the state was happy with its innovations and accepted them.
Mr Musk made the remarks in an interview with the editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday during the annual summit of the CEO Council.
Startup executives and employees have fled the San Francisco Bay area for cheap locale as the epidemic has created remote work conditions. Last week, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise,
Tracing towards the founding of Silicon Valley, he said he plans to relocate his headquarters to Texas. In the past, many tech leaders and industry observers have questioned whether the geographical area is losing its relevance as a technology hub.
Mr Musk threatened to move Tesla’s operations out of California when it was forced to close its single US car factory in May as a measure to slow the spread of the virus. He criticized the local authorities at the time for “curbing the freedom of the people”.
The auto toe executive later filed a lawsuit against Tesla factory home Alameda County and reprimanded local authorities for daring to arrest him and take action to reopen the plant. Eventually the county blessed the reopening of the plant and did not attempt an arrest.
Mr Musk said last month that he had tested positive for the Covid-19 and that after playing the risk of illness repeatedly and doubting the accuracy of the tests, he was experiencing mild symptoms. He has been criticized by public health researchers for spreading false information about the coronavirus.
Texas has no state income tax, and Mr. Musk will receive billions of dollars in stock-option returns this year as part of a pay package agreement. Mr. Kasturi filed the paper in late October, according to local records, to move his personal foundation from California to Austin, Texas. The move was previously reported by Bloomberg.
Tesla also said earlier this year that it would build a new car plant in Austin, its second in the US and its first outside of Silicon Valley. It is set to launch production cars next year. The auto toe maker said Tuesday it would raise 5 5 billion through new sales of the stock, the second time this year it would raise that amount to fund its expansion plans. Mr Musk said Tesla plans to build 20 million cars a year in a few years, up from 500,000 in 2020.
Mr. Musk’s other large company is Space Exploration Technologies Corp. Or SpaceX has an operation in Texas.
SpaceX last month launched four astronauts into orbit, marking the company’s first manned on-board operational mission and launching a regular scheduled commercial flight to the International Space Station.
Tesla, despite a temporary factory shutdown at the start of the epidemic, is expected to deliver about 500,000 cars this year to meet its pre-epidemic target, or about 36% more than last year. It is also on track to achieve the first full calendar year of profitability after posting a record profit of 33 1,331 million in the third quarter.
Write to Heather Somerville at [email protected]
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