This is a new conservative outburst for the billionaire. On Tuesday, July 16, American entrepreneur Elon Musk announced on X (ex-Twitter) his intend to move to Texas the headquarters of two companies he heads: the aerospace firm SpaceX and… the social network X itself. Both are currently based in California.
In his announcement, Elon Musk justifies this decision as a sign of protest against the policies of the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom. At issue: the promulgation on Monday of a Californian law aimed at protecting the rights of transgender students and fighting against their discrimination. Two surprise moves that confirm Elon Musk’s break with the golden state, and a new stage in the far-right politicization of the richest man in the world.
An opposition to California progressivism
And for good reason: Elon Musk opposes an unprecedented law in the fight against discrimination in the United States. Signed on Monday, the “SAFETY Act“California’s law prohibits school personnel from disclosing information about a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to anyone without the student’s prior consent. This ban also applies to the student’s parents, making California the first US state to ban the “outing” (revealing an LBGTQ+ person’s sexual orientation or gender identity without their consent) forced LGBTQ+ students.
“This is the last straw,” the conservative billionaire reacted on Tuesday on X. According to him, the passage of this text “and of many others which preceded it […] attack families and businesses.” “A year ago, I made it clear to Governor Newsom that laws of this nature would force families and businesses to leave California to protect their children,” Musk said. In another message published on Wednesday, he believes that this law would cause “a massive destruction of parental rights and puts children at risk of permanent harm,” without further details.
A position that could be linked to Elon Musk’s personal experience. Indeed, one of the Tesla boss’s children, born male, identified as a woman at 16. She then made an official request to change her first name at 18, in 2021, before breaking off relations with her father. A decision that Elon Musk attributed to a school education that he considers too progressive.
Two headquarters and thousands of employees affected
While the majority of the South African entrepreneur’s activities had remained in California until now, Elon Musk is now making a break with this progressive American state. The day after the promulgation, Elon Musk announced that “SpaceX will now move its headquarters from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase”, named after an industrial complex of the aerospace company located near Brownsville, in the far southeast of Texas.
This is the latest step in SpaceX’s migration to the conservative state, after Elon Musk changed the company’s legal domicile from Delaware to Texas in February. However, the move is expected to impact some of SpaceX’s roughly 13,000 employees, although the proportion of the workforce based in California is not known.
A few minutes after this announcement, it was the turn of the “X HQ” and its 1,500 employees to move: while the billionaire indicated that he was “tired of having to avoid gangs of violent drug addicts to enter and exit the building”, located in the upscale city center of San Francisco, it “will move to Austin”, Elon Musk specifies. It is also in this Texan metropolis that Tesla’s headquarters had also been moved from California in 2021, in opposition to Californian legislation and the preventive measures taken during the Covid-19 pandemic by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
One step closer to the Republicans
In the wake of these announcements, several figures in the Republican camp have since supported Elon Musk’s position. While Texas Governor Greg Abbott was content to congratulate the move of the social network X to Austin on Wednesday, House of Representative Marjorie Taylor Green called on Americans on Tuesday to “leave any state that wants to control your children.”
More broadly, these surprise moves once again confirm Elon Musk’s alignment with the Republican camp. Since taking control of Twitter in October 2022, the businessman has continued to accelerate the pace of his messages in support of the American conservative party, particularly on immigration, diversity and education.
On Saturday, the fifty-year-old also declared his political support for former President Donald Trump, shortly after the assassination attempt on him. This support should also be economic: according to Wall Street Journal On Monday, Elon Musk reportedly plans to donate about $45 million a month to a group supporting the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign.