Tesla owner Elon Musk and California Gov. Gavin Newsom teamed up for a surprise announcement Wednesday revealing that the electric car company is returning to California.
The duo announced that Tesla will house its engineering headquarters in Palo Alto.
Driving the news: Tesla will occupy the former Hewlett Packard headquarters in Palo Alto, a decision that comes two years after Musk moved Tesla’s corporate headquarters out of Palo Alto to Austin, Texas.
- The company’s corporate headquarters will remain in Austin.
State of play: When Musk fled the Golden State a couple years ago, he blasted the state for overregulation, overlitigation and overtaxation.
- But Wednesday’s return followed his recent purchase of Twitter, which is headquartered up the road in San Francisco, and it also brought Tesla back to the state that has bought 40 percent of the nation’s zero-emission vehicles (1.4 million).
- Despite the departure from the Golden State a couple years ago, Tesla maintained its manufacturing plant in Fremont, which is expected to produce 600,000 vehicles this year.
What they’re saying: During the press conference Musk did not reveal the specific reasons behind his decision to return to Palo Alto, simply calling the move to the former Hewlett Packard building a “poetic transition from the company that founded Silicon Valley to Tesla.”
- Newsom said that it is a point of pride that Tesla is a California company and added that the state is on the forefront of innovation.
