Tesla CEO and billionaire Elon Musk announced that he’s moved from California’s Silicon Valley to Texas on Tuesday. Musk made the announcement at a Wall Street Journal virtual event, and he didn’t have the kindest words for his former state.
“They do tend to get a little complacent, a little entitled, and then they don’t win the championship anymore,” he said of the far-left state. “And I think they’re taking them for granted a little bit.”
Musk predicted that Silicon Valley, the longtime home of Big Tech monopolies, would decline. “I think we’ll see some reduction in the influence of Silicon Valley.” Hewlett Packard, a technology company whose roots in Silicon Valley go back to the area’s origins as America’s premier technology location, recently announced it was leaving California- for Texas, as well.
Some California state legislators and elected officials have attacked Musk in recent months, citing Tesla’s hesitance to comply with the state’s most draconian lockdown orders. Musk, who has become the second wealthiest individual in the world following a massive increase in Tesla stock prices during the coronations epidemic, sued California’s Alameda County for restrictions that prevented the manufacture of Tesla vehicles at a company plant.
Musk’s move to Texas follows Tesla’s plans to build a factory in Austin.
Elon Musk is going to be fine wherever he lives, but California, once the undisputed territory of the nation’s billionaire class, could face serious tax liability issues if it loses much of the corporate and technology elite that subsidize the state’s pauper class. California is one of the most economically unequal states in the country, and the state’s population is heavily segregated along lines of class and race.