Despite moving its corporate headquarters to Texas, Tesla now considers California its global engineering home base. Elon Musk said the Palo Alto engineering hub would be “effectively a Tesla headquarters.” The CEO added that the company’s plant in Fremont, which it bought in 2010 from a joint venture of General Motors and Toyota Motor Corp., will increase production to more than 600,000 vehicles this year.
Tesla is using a former Hewlett-Packard building in Palo Alto as its new engineering headquarters. “It’s a poetic transition from the company that founded Silicon Valley to Tesla,” Musk said.
The move is an about-face from the CEO’s previous comments about the state. Musk didn’t mince words about California’s regulations and taxes when he moved Tesla’s official corporate headquarters to Texas in 2021, complaining about “overregulation, overlitigation, over-taxation.” He tweeted about the pandemic lockdowns in California last year, “Frankly, this is the last straw. Tesla will now move HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we continue the manufacturing activity in Fremont, it can [dependent] how Tesla will be treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.
Following the news of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives, Tesla will shift the focus of battery production from Germany to the US. Musk appeared with Gavin Newsom at an event on Wednesday, where the California governor mocked the move: “Eat your heart out, Germany.” California, which has more electric vehicles than any other state, has given Tesla tax bonuses on its way to growing into the EV superpower it is today; Texas has less regulation and taxes in comparison.
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