It looks like Elon Musk may move Tesla's headquarters to Austin
- Tesla could be moving its headquarters from Palo Alto, California to Austin, Texas.
- The company's shareholder meeting is taking place there on Thursday.
- Tesla CEO Elon Musk moved to Texas last year and relocated his foundation there.
Tesla could be leaving its longtime Silicon Valley home for Austin, Texas, a city that has attracted a flood of tech companies and remote workers over the last year and a half.
The automaker's annual shareholder meeting on Thursday is taking place not in the Bay Area as usual, but in the Texas capitol. It's the latest sign that after moving much of his life and business to the Lone Star State, Tesla CEO Elon Musk may be moving Tesla's headquarters there as well.
Tesla did not return Insider's request for comment.
Following a very public spat with local public health officials over coronavirus restrictions that forced Tesla's Fremont factory to close temporarily, Musk said in May 2020 that he would move Tesla's "HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately." Tesla is currently headquartered in Palo Alto, California.
That summer, Tesla chose Austin as the site for its next US manufacturing plant, which is under construction and is set to begin building Model Y cars at scale in 2022. Tesla says it will eventually build the Cybertruck pickup and Semi tractor-trailer there.
In October 2020, Musk relocated his charitable foundation to Texas, Bloomberg first reported. And in December, Musk announced that he had moved to the state, later saying he lives in a $50,000 home in Boca Chica, Texas, the location of SpaceX's launch site. (Musk is also the founder and CEO of SpaceX.)
Tesla's two latest press releases in late September and early October came from Austin rather than Palo Alto, perhaps indicating that an official exit from California is imminent or has already happened.