Elon Musk made the announcement during a press briefing with California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the electric-car maker plans to expand its engineering headquarters in California.
The Tesla CEO said the company is moving into office space in Palo Alto that was previously occupied by Hewlett Packard.
He added that the move would allow the company to work more on its plans for autonomous driving and robotics. CNBC, citing sources familiar with the plan, reported that the site has been dubbed “HQ2”.
Musk called the move a “poetic transition from the company that founded Silicon Valley to Tesla.” The electric-car maker originally signed a lease for about half of HP’s former office space through 2021, according to a Reuters report at the time.
“I couldn’t be more proud of California’s committement to supporting Tesla,” Newsom said, adding that he’s worked with Elon Musk for decades and even bought one of the carmaker’s first Roadsters.
The announcement comes less than two years after Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin, Texas.
At the time, the billionaire said he would relocate Tesla’s main headquarters because it has become difficult for employees to buy homes in the Bay Area, though he said Tesla planned to continue expanding its presence in California.
Musk and Newsom have been at odds in the past. In 2020, the billionaire threatened to pull all Tesla operations out of California because he disagreed with the state’s response to the pandemic, including its shelter-in-place orders.
The state has also launched a series of regulatory investigations regarding Tesla’s handling of its workers as well as the marketing of its self-driving technology.
Last year, a California regulator sued Tesla alleging racial discrimination at the Fremont factory based on “hundreds of complaints from workers.”
Most recently, California’s Department of Motor Vehicles accused the company of intentionally misleading customers in advertising its Autopilot and full self-driving features.
Despite the move to Texas, the carmaker continued to produce many of its cars in Fremont, California, and it still maintains its previous company headquarters in Palo Alto. As of January, Tesla employs approximately 47,000 workers in California.
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Information Source: BI