Musk’s X, SpaceX latest companies to move HQ to Texas for more favorable business climate

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s announcement on Tuesday that he will relocate the corporate headquarters of SpaceX and X from California to Texas comes as the latest high profile examples of businesses moving to the Lone Star State for a more favorable business climate.

Musk announced the move in response to a new California law prohibiting schools from notifying parents about their children’s gender identity, calling it the “final straw” following the state’s other policies that Musk said are aimed at “attacking both families and companies.” X’s headquarters will move from San Francisco to Austin, while SpaceX’s HQ will move from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican in his third term as the state’s governor, wrote in a post that the move “cements Texas as the leader in space exploration” and added separately that “teXas is the HQ for business.”

Abbott’s tenure as governor has seen an influx of companies moving their headquarters to the state, which has no personal or corporate income tax and has touted its business-friendly regulations.

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Here’s a look at some of the notable companies that have relocated their headquarters to Texas in recent years:

2023

Investment advisory firm Fisher Investments moved its HQ from Camas, Washington, to Plano, Texas, following a decision by the Washington State Supreme Court upholding the state’s capital gains tax.

“In honor of the Washington State Supreme Court’s wisdom and knowledge of the law, and in recognition of whatever it may do next, Fisher Investments is immediately moving its headquarters from Washington state to Texas,” the company said in a statement announcing the move in March 2023.

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2022

Heavy equipment manufacturer Caterpillar announced it would move its world headquarters from Deerfield, Illinois, to Irving, Texas in June 2022. 

Caterpillar said the move was in the “best strategic interest” of the company and noted it had a presence in Texas dating to the 1960s, while Illinois remained the largest concentration of Caterpillar employees at that time.

2021

Tesla CEO Elon Musk relocated the electric vehicle-maker’s headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas.

Musk said at the time there is a “limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area.” Tesla’s move came after he had said Alameda County’s efforts to block the automaker from reopening its Fremont facility in 2020 amid the COVID pandemic were the “final straw” and he would move Tesla’s HQ to Texas or Nevada “immediately.”

Musk had previously moved the Musk Foundation’s HQ to Texas in 2020, and would later relocate The Boring Company’s HQ to Texas in 2022.

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2020

Software giant Oracle announced it would move its world HQ from Redwood City, California, to Austin as it implemented a “more flexible employee work location policy” and saying the moves “best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work.” This year, Oracle announced plans to move its world HQ to Nashville, with the Austin facility remaining a U.S. headquarters location.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced a move from San Jose, California, to Spring, Texas, with the company citing “opportunities for cost savings, and team members’ preferences about the future of work.” 

2019

Charles Schwab announced it would move its headquarters from San Francisco to Westlake, Texas, following its acquisition of TD Ameritrade. The company was founded in San Francisco and indicated at the time that it didn’t anticipate the move would impact the vast majority of roles in the Bay Area.