Tesla engineering headquarters settled in Silicon Valley, Musk, who sprayed California, could not escape the "law of true fragrance" after all?

Cai Lian News, Feb. 23 (Editor Xiaoxiang) Tesla announced Wednesday that it will set up its new engineering headquarters in a former HP building in Silicon Valley. Tesla CEO Musk met with California Governor Gavin Newsom on the same day and visited the location of the engineering headquarters in Palo Alto, California.

According to sources, the two sides focused on Tesla's efforts to create jobs and expand in California. Tesla will focus on hiring engineers who are proficient in research and development and artificial intelligence, and the program will help accelerate the development of autonomous driving and robotics.

Musk said in an interview with the media, "This was the original headquarters of HP, so I think this has undergone a poetic transition from the founder of Silicon Valley to Tesla, and we are very excited to transform this place into our global engineering headquarters." We are a company based in California and Texas. ”

HP used to be the originator of leading the "Silicon Valley startup". It is precisely because of the demonstration effect of Hewlett-Packard's entrepreneurial success in the "garage" that there is a booming "Silicon Valley" later.

Tesla moved its corporate headquarters from California to Austin, Texas, in 2021. As for the positioning between Tesla's corporate headquarters and engineering headquarters, Musk recently said that the new engineering headquarters is actually also a headquarters of Tesla, which is "a bit like a company with dual headquarters."

California Governor Newsom emphasized Tesla's California "pedigree" during his meeting with Musk. Newsom said, "One of the things I've always been proud of is that Tesla is a California company. ”

Musk's California past

It is worth mentioning that the most dramatic point in the finalization of the location of Tesla's engineering headquarters may be Musk's many attacks on California in the past few years, but now, he has to return to the place where this dream began...

Tesla moved its headquarters to Texas in 2021 after a dispute with the local California government over a shutdown order under the pandemic in 2020 and the Tesla factory in Fremont, California, the only Tesla factory that made electric cars at the time.

When Musk announced the decision to move his headquarters, he lamented that in his opinion, California, with its illustrious history of Silicon Valley, has become too complacent. Musk likens California to a sports team with a long winning streak — "They're becoming complacent, somewhat self-righteous, and then they're never going to win a championship again." ”

California, he noted, "has been winning for a long time. I think they're a little presumptuous now. ”

In the early days of the pandemic, Musk slammed quarantine orders issued by local officials in California, saying the restrictions violated human rights.

Last year, Tesla also laid off jobs in California. According to media reports, the company closed an office in San Mateo, Calif., and cut about 200 positions. The office is home to developers of Tesla's advanced driver assistance system, Autopilot.

Tesla is also facing regulatory scrutiny in California. The California Department of Motor Vehicles has previously formally accused Tesla of conducting deceptive marketing and advertising campaigns in its driver assistance programs, Autopilot and FSD. California's civil rights agency is also suing Tesla, alleging that the company's auto assembly plant and other factories in California have been racially harassing and discriminating against black workers for years.

Meanwhile, according to Tesla's latest annual financial filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, district attorneys in multiple California counties are also "investigating Tesla's scrap segregation practices" into whether it violated hazardous scrap regulations.

After all, it is difficult to escape the "law of true fragrance"?

At present, unlike Tesla's Fremont, California factory in 2021, the company has built a number of new factories in many places around the world - Shanghai, Austin and Berlin. Tesla's Shanghai factory has become Tesla's highest production capacity factory in the world.

So, why did Musk resist the pressure of being "slapped in the face" and relocate his global engineering headquarters to Silicon Valley?

In this regard, Morningstar stock analyst Seth Goldstein commented that given that the Bay Area of California is home to many leading technology companies, it makes sense that Tesla's engineering headquarters can attract top talent.

Stephen F. Diamond, an associate professor at Santa Clara University in California (SCU), noted that this may be a reminder of Tesla's success in California and does indicate that Musk made a strategic mistake in moving his headquarters to Texas.

According to an industry group report earlier this month, the Tesla Model Y became California's best-selling model last year, with the Tesla Model 3 in second place, surpassing Toyota's RAV4 and Camry models. This is the first time a Tesla model has topped California's annual sales list. Traditionally, California's "sales king" has typically been Toyota's models.

Tesla said it currently has an annual production capacity of about 650,000 vehicles at its Fremont, California plant. The electric vehicle leader manufactures Model S limousine, Model X sport utility vehicles, and Model 3 and Model Y sedans at the plant.

In fact, while Tesla's headquarters have moved to Texas in recent years, Musk has also insisted that Tesla will continue to grow in California. The company remains in California for a significant portion of its operations, including opening a new battery plant in Lathrop in San Joaquin County, California.

"I'm not against California. One has to look at things in perspective, and California has many strengths and challenges. California can make manufacturing easier, and we encourage lawmakers to think long term about their actions," Musk said in an interview Wednesday.

Tesla is still in expansion mode to meet Musk's goal of selling 20 million electric cars by 2030. According to a report on Trump's official website in January 2023, it had 47,000 employees in California in 2022. The company said at the time that "2023 will be an even more important year for Tesla in California." ”

Musk also runs a large presence in California, such as Twitter, which is headquartered in San Francisco, and SpaceX, a space exploration company, which is headquartered in Hawthorne.