HOUCAJUN Posted May 9, 2020 Share Posted May 9, 2020 Any chance Elon Musk moves Tesla HQ to Houston area? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tumbleweed_Tx Posted May 10, 2020 Share Posted May 10, 2020 he's talking about moving the factory and everything to Texas (or Nevada). Houston would be perfect since we have transportation hubs for air, rail, and sea. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H-Town Man Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 On 5/9/2020 at 6:52 PM, HOUCAJUN said: Any chance Elon Musk moves Tesla HQ to Houston area? I think we have a chance - about 1%. Austin has about a 60% chance and Dallas a 39% chance, assuming he moves his HQ to Texas. Tesla wants a sexy location that is emblematic of the new economy and quality of life prestige, with a deep pool of tech talent and the ability to lure talent. The home city of the dinosaur industry that Tesla aims to displace is not it. Their current location is Palo Alto, which they did not choose out of all the locations in California because it is low cost or offers a good deal on office space or has an aw shucks, can-do attitude. We may have a chance at the car factory, since there are already car factories in San Antonio and DFW and we have the port, etc. Before I get flamed, I'm writing this in terms of "How the world sees Houston," not "How Houston knows itself, in a way that the world doesn't understand yet." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CREguy13 Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 46 minutes ago, H-Town Man said: I think we have a chance - about 1%. Austin has about a 60% chance and Dallas a 39% chance, assuming he moves his HQ to Texas. Tesla wants a sexy location that is emblematic of the new economy and quality of life prestige, with a deep pool of tech talent and the ability to lure talent. The home city of the dinosaur industry that Tesla aims to displace is not it. Their current location is Palo Alto, which they did not choose out of all the locations in California because it is low cost or offers a good deal on office space or has an aw shucks, can-do attitude. We may have a chance at the car factory, since there are already car factories in San Antonio and DFW and we have the port, etc. Before I get flamed, I'm writing this in terms of "How the world sees Houston," not "How Houston knows itself, in a way that the world doesn't understand yet." Very fair and good clarification on 'How the world sees Houston' as obviously that's a real thing and has hurt this city dearly in losing corporate relocations to other comparable markets. I'm of course biased, but I believe Houston is a perfect fit for Tesla, SpaceX, and Solarcity. To me, a lot of this depends on how seriously the city, GHP and major business leaders are pushing the 'Leading the Energy transition' initiative and how aggressive they are getting to lure these clean energy and energy tech companies to Houston. Does Elon want his EV/Battery Storage, Solar, and Space company to be in the Energy Capital of the world? Does he want an abundance of highly-skilled technical and manufacturing workers, knowledge experts, corporate-level talent, available labor pool, experienced local government and public/private partnerships that promote energy companies all day every day? Houston's pitch should be less geared towards low-cost of doing business, but more that we are better suited than other markets to propel his companies forward with the critical pieces we have in place, our ongoing investments in these areas, and that his businesses fit the long-term vision of Houston. To me it's a winning formula, but as you said a lot of it is optics. If city leaders are in a position to pitch Houston as the best place to champion his companies, then we realistically could have a shot. But if this comes down to optics, I agree we may fall to 3rd place in the state. Again, this is likely just a threat to the county to re-open his factory, but will be interesting to follow his comments on doing business in CA in the coming months. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tumbleweed_Tx Posted May 12, 2020 Share Posted May 12, 2020 5 hours ago, CREguy13 said: Again, this is likely just a threat to the county to re-open his factory, but will be interesting to follow his comments on doing business in CA in the coming months. that's what it is. The open hostility towards him from elected California officials opened his eyes to what he has to deal with there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Houston19514 Posted May 13, 2020 Share Posted May 13, 2020 Well said, H-town Man and CREguy. Musk is obviously an outside-of-the-box thinker, so maybe we could have a chance to convince someone like him to not just follow the herds to Dallas and Austin. The home city of the dinosaur industry he hopes to replace could be the perfect match for him. On a related note, we should adopt "A New Kind of Energy" as a marketing slogan for Houston. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JBTX Posted May 13, 2020 Share Posted May 13, 2020 I see San Antonio as the leading city, honestly. Austin is out. It's the same problem as California. He'll receive the same open disdain from them and their city counsel as he does Cali leaders. Houston makes sense for SpaceX, obviously, but SpaceX also already has the Boca Chica location. Houston makes sense from a supply chain standpoint with the port, airport, and ample rail, so maybe the car factory goes here. But realistically, think what SA can offer: cheap land, almost guaranteed tax incentives, close to the Austin talent pool without the Maoist counsel, close to Houston/NASA, and close to Boca Chica. But that said, I hope it's Houston, obvs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
s3mh Posted May 13, 2020 Share Posted May 13, 2020 0% chance of moving. Musk is freaking out because he needs to deliver vehicles before customers cancel their orders due to the pandemic. California is in his way and he is just ranting about moving to try to get someone in Sacramento to push ahead with reopening or give him some sort of exception. Tesla has too much money sunk in its California facilities and too little money to throw around for moving facilities that really do not need to be moved. And despite all the moaning and groaning, tech firms are totally married to Silicon Valley. None of the higher ups in Silicon Valley want to trade their $5 mil home with a bay view for a McMansion in some Texas suburb. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luminare Posted May 13, 2020 Share Posted May 13, 2020 Interestingly enough Elon was on Joe Rogan before all of this happened. There was one segment of this discussion that I think people aren't really talking about which might make the move more real than fiction, and that is at one point Elon talks about (I'm summarizing) essentially throwing out or selling off a bunch of his assets/possessions/real estate stating that he just doesn't have a need for any of those things. This, aligned with his most recent exploits such as his comments about the lockdown, his comments about his companies stock price/evaluation, etc..., seems to me, in my opinion, a man that really wants to shake things up in his life and take it in a new direction. There is no doubt that California has a great environment, and a history of being a place to start a new project, or innovation, but it doesn't strike me as a great place to build a company and build it for the long haul. People there can be very fickle, and are always looking for the next new thing, and especially if you aren't in line with the latest ideology, or the latest word game/speak then at some point those people that supported you will suddenly turn against you and see you as the new villain. In my opinion, I think Elon was the perfect personality, with the perfect new tech, the perfect ideas, and in the perfect location, at the perfect time, but it seems to me that he doesn't want to be the same or be perceived as the same forever. Maybe its his age, or him evolving as a person, but it seems to me he is just tired of playing that game, and just wants to do the work he wants to do. Bottom line is that if your goal in life is to "die on Mars", which is his goal, then its safe to assume that whatever possessions or assets he has here don't really have any value to him. The games that they play in Cali, doesn't matter to him. On 5/12/2020 at 11:00 AM, H-Town Man said: Before I get flamed, I'm writing this in terms of "How the world sees Houston," not "How Houston knows itself, in a way that the world doesn't understand yet." I agreed with everything else that you said, but this was best said. Either way, the interesting thing is that whether its what is perceived about us on the outside or the inside, everyone knows that fundamentally Houston is a city where you go to work, and work your butt off. Plain and simple. There are lots of things we definitely want to project about ourselves as different than what is perceived, but that will never change what the true ethos of this city is, and that is if you want to work, and work really hard, or just flat out get the hard work done, then you come to Houston. If Elon just wants to work hard, focus on work alone, and get the hard work done, then I don't know any of city that has a better mentality of that than Houston, for better or for worse. I hope someone has the Mayor's ear or Elon's ear to mention Houston in all of this because I still believe that this city has the potential to be a bigger and better city than what it is now, and maybe Elon can be an integral part of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tumbleweed_Tx Posted May 14, 2020 Share Posted May 14, 2020 there's two Tesla to TX threads, can they be merged? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hindesky Posted May 16, 2020 Share Posted May 16, 2020 Tesla Picks Austin https://www.chron.com/news/article/Tesla-picks-Austin-Tulsa-as-finalists-for-new-US-15273563.php?cmpid=trend DETROIT (AP) — Tesla has picked Austin, Texas, and Tulsa, Oklahoma, as finalists for its new U.S. assembly plant, a person briefed on the matter said Friday. The person says company officials visited Tulsa in the past week and were shown two sites. It wasn’t clear if there were any other finalists in the mix. The person, who didn't want to be identified because the site selection process is secret, said no final decision has been made. The new factory will be Tesla's biggest so far. The electric car maker has said it wants the factory to be in the center of the country and closer to East Coast markets. The stakes are high for state and local governments, which covet auto factories because they have a lot of workers and normally pay well, generating income and property taxes. Tesla's current U.S. vehicle assembly factory is in Fremont, California, which employs 10,000 workers. The company has a second U.S. factory in Reno, where it builds batteries for its vehicles and employs about 6,500 people. It also has a factory in Shanghai and another one under construction in Germany. Companies typically use proposals from finalists to bargain for the best package of tax breaks, site investments and other incentives. The new factory would build Tesla's upcoming “Cybertruck” as well as be a second site to build the Model Y small SUV. On the company's earnings conference call in April, Musk said the site of the company's third U.S. factory could be announced within a month. Musk calls his plants “Gigafactories.” The respective mayors, Steve Adler of Austin and G.T. Bynum of Tulsa, as well as Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, all declined comment on whether their cities are finalists for the plant. However, all reasserted their respective locales would be best suited for the plant site. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Earlier this week, Musk threatened to move manufacturing and Tesla’s headquarters out of California in a fight with San Francisco Bay Area health officials over whether the Fremont plant could reopen after being closed to stop the spread of coronavirus. He defied an order to stay closed and the plant was running for two days before the Alameda County Public Health Department announced a settlement. The department said the plant could run above minimum basic operations this week and start producing vehicles this coming Monday, as long as it delivered on promised safety precautions for workers. It would be difficult for Musk to move out of Fremont, though, because Tesla would have to take its only U.S. assembly plant offline for months while it moved heavy equipment to another location. It also would be hard to move the headquarters in Silicon Valley to another state because software engineers and other technical workers likely wouldn’t want to relocate and could find work elsewhere in the area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
htownbro Posted May 16, 2020 Share Posted May 16, 2020 Another L for Houston. I can understand Austin but Tulsa??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H-Town Man Posted May 16, 2020 Share Posted May 16, 2020 56 minutes ago, htownbro said: Another L for Houston. I can understand Austin but Tulsa??? They're probably just to lever Austin/Texas for incentives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CREguy13 Posted December 7, 2020 Share Posted December 7, 2020 Figured this deserved a bump following this past weekend's sources of Elon telling friends he's moving to Texas. I'm still holding out hope Houston receives SpaceX HQ and/or Tesla, Elon himself is almost certainly Austin bound. I won't repeat myself after my prior statement above, but taking out some of the allure for Austin, Houston to me makes so much more sense for Tesla/SpaceX to operate and succeeds as businesses. A major factory commitment is not indicative of an HQ move nor the guys primary residence - he did have like 7-9 houses across NoCal and SoCal. I happily admit I'm a biased cheerleader for this city, but I will not rule out any Houston possibility until it is 100% made official. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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