Elon Musk to move SpaceX and X headquarters out of California to Texas

Elon Musk said he will move the headquarters of his rocket firm SpaceX and social media platform X out of California to Texas.

Citing the new Californian state law which bans schools from requiring staff to disclose information about a child’s gender identity including to parents, the billionaire wrote on X, “This is the last straw.” Elon Musk had already moved Tesla’s headquarters to Texas in 2021.

He added, “Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.”

This comes after Elon Musk formally endorsed Donald Trump for president as the Wall Street Journal reported that the billionaire would be directing $45 million a month toward his campaign.

This is not the first time Elon Musk, who has a transgender daughter, has talked about gender identity. He earlier said he “supports trans” while saying that the usage of pronouns is an “aesthetic nightmare”. In 2023, he also said that he would lobby to criminalise transgender medical treatment that could lead to “severe, irreversible changes to children below the age of consent”.

California Governor Gavin Newsom took to social media to criticize Elon Musk’s as he posted a screenshot of a 2022 post from Donald Trump criticising the billionaire with the message, “You bent the knee.”

A spokesperson for the governor said as per Associated Press that the bill kept “children safe while protecting the critical role of parents”. The spokesperson said, “It protects the child-parent relationship by preventing politicians and school staff from inappropriately intervening in family matters and attempting to control if, when, and how families have deeply personal conversation.”