At Tesla's 2021 Annual Meeting of Stockholders on Thursday, CEO Elon Musk announced that the company headquarters will move from Palo Alto, California to Austin, Texas. The announcement comes months after the company filed a lawsuit against Alameda County and threatened to move its headquarters to Texas over disagreements between company executives and county health officials on when the Tesla factory in Fremont can reopen following a Covid-related shutdown.
Taking on the Alameda County health department back in May, Musk took to Twitter to vent his frustrations at the stringent Covid-related restrictions in California, calling the health officer's decision the "final straw" and announcing plans to move the Tesla HQ and future programs to Texas or Nevada. He also threatened to end or reduce manufacturing activity in Fremont, although that seems unlikely to happen following Thursday's announcements.
Answering shareholder questions at the meeting, Musk said that Tesla's decision to move its HQ out of California doesn't mean that the company is leaving the state for good. According to him, Tesla would actually expand its operations in the Golden State, with plans to increase output at the Fremont gigafactory by 50%. The factory is said to have been producing around 600,000 vehicles per year as of January 2021, which means its production capacity is likely to go up to around 900,000 following the proposed expansion.
Talking about the much-hyped Cybertruck, Musk reiterated that the vehicle is on track to enter commercial production by the end of 2022, but the volumes will only be ramped up the following year. The Tesla Roadster and Semi are the next in line, with production slated to start by the end of 2023. When asked about the delay, Musk cited supply chain shortages, including the current chip shortage, as the reason for not being able to stick to the original timelines. Tesla unveiled the Semi prototype in 2017 and the Cybertruck in 2019, but both have faced multiple delays over the past years.
As part of Musk's increasing love for the Lone Star State, the meeting on Thursday was held at Tesla's Austin gigafactory, rather than in California as in previous years. Following Musk's announcement regarding the impending HQ shift, the company also showed off a cowboy-style belt buckle design with the state's Lone Star symbol and the words: "Don't Mess With T," a slightly tweaked version of the iconic Texas anti-littering campaign slogan. In the design, the "T" was stylized as the Tesla logo.
Source: Tesla/YouTube
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October 08, 2021 at 11:58PM
