Elon Musk announced on Tuesday that he will relocate the headquarters of SpaceX and X to Texas following a new California law that prevents schools from forcing teachers to notify parents about changes to a student’s gender identity.
“This is the final straw,” Musk declared on X, a day after California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill, intensifying the ongoing cultural battles in a contentious US election year.
“Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas,” Musk said.
Additionally, Musk stated that he is moving X, formerly Twitter, from its art-deco headquarters in San Francisco to Austin, a threat he has previously made but never executed.
“Have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building,” Musk wrote.
Musk has already relocated Tesla’s headquarters from Palo Alto in Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas, but still retains an “engineering headquarters” in California.
The billionaire has shown strong disapproval for the use of preferred pronouns, frequently mocking the practice on social media and dismissing it as part of a “woke” agenda he considers dangerous for society.
Musk is estranged from his trans daughter, attributing her political shift to the far left and their strained relationship to her education at a California private school.
Newsom signed the controversial law on Monday after a heated legislative process that saw a clash between school boards advocating for parental rights and LGBTQ activists worried about the safety of vulnerable students.
The law reverses decisions in conservative school districts that mandated teachers to inform parents if a student changed their name or pronouns, or requested to use facilities or join programs that didn’t align with their official gender.
Newsom, who is seen as a potential alternative to President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate for the White House, has frequently engaged in disputes with conservatives over gender issues in state schools.
Last year, he signed a law imposing fines on school districts that ban textbooks depicting LGBTQ individuals and other marginalized groups.
Newsom also had a fierce battle with a conservative school board over its opposition to the study of gay rights figure Harvey Milk, a San Francisco public official who was assassinated.
Musk has previously clashed with Newsom, a former San Francisco mayor, during the most critical phases of the Covid-19 pandemic, challenging the decisions of city and state health officials.
