by - Elon Musk announced on Wednesday that Tesla plans to expand its engineering headquarters in California.
- The company is taking over Hewlett Packard’s Palo Alto office.
- Tesla moved company headquarters to Texas in 2021, but it still employs thousands of workers in California.
Elon Musk announced during a press conference with California Governor Gavin Newsom that the electric car maker plans to expand its engineering headquarters in California.
Tesla’s CEO said the company is moving into office space in Palo Alto formerly occupied by Hewlett Packard. He said the move will allow the company to work more on its autonomous and robotic driving plans. CNBC reported that the site was dubbed “HQ2”, citing sources familiar with the plans.
Musk called the move a “poetic transition from the company that founded Silicon Valley to Tesla.” The electric car maker originally signed a lease for about half of the former HP office in 2021, according to a Reuters report at the time.
“I couldn’t be more proud of California’s commitment to supporting Tesla,” Newsom said, adding that he worked with Musk for decades and even bought one of the automaker’s first Roadsters.
The announcement comes less than two years after Musk moved Tesla’s headquarters to Austin, Texas. At the time, the billionaire said he moved Tesla’s main headquarters because it became difficult for employees to afford homes in the Bay Area, although he said Tesla planned to continue to expand its presence in California.
Musk and Newsom have been at odds in the past. In 2020, the billionaire threatened to pull all Tesla operations out of California because he disagreed with the state’s response to the pandemic, including its shelter-in-place orders.
The state has also launched a series of regulatory investigations into Tesla’s treatment of its workers, as well as the marketing of its self-driving technology. Last year, a California regulator sued Tesla, alleging racial profiling at the Fremont plant based on “hundreds of worker complaints.” More recently, the California Department of Motor Vehicles accused the company of intentionally misleading customers in advertising its Autopilot and fully autonomous driving features.
Despite the move to Texas, the automaker continued to produce many of its cars at the factory in Fremont, California, and still maintains its former headquarters in Palo Alto. As of January, Tesla employed about 47,000 workers in California.
Spokespersons for Musk and Tesla did not respond to an Insider request for comment.
