Move over, Silicon Valley. You knew we were coming for you and now, it’s official. Tesla will move its headquarters from the San Francisco Bay Area to Austin… we just don’t know when yet.
Tesla CEO and Grimes’s ex Elon Musk made the announcement during the company’s annual shareholders meeting at its massive manufacturing plant under construction in northeast Austin. Once complete, the project is expected to employ over 10,000 people through corporate and factory jobs, bringing enormous growth and new wealth to the city.
The new headquarters may or may not be located at Austin’s manufacturing plant. And when, exactly, the move from Palo Alto in the San Francisco Bay Area to Austin will officially happen is unclear, but we can probably count on Elon to tweet the details to the masses when the time is right.
Austin was already on its way to becoming the country’s latest tech hub. With the likes of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Indeed, Bumble, and other titans settling into downtown, plus the brand-new Google corporate offices being built right now, there’s no stopping the millennials—and now, Gen-Z, if we can get them to ditch TikTok for corporate work—from flocking. Bottom line: Austin needs to undergo some serious infrastructure changes to accommodate all of this growth, and don’t we already know it (looking at you, I-35 traffic).
On the flipside, the general consensus is that all of this growth will increase rent prices and push out locals who have been here forever. And, honestly, Austinites are right to worry. Not only has Austin grown 28% in population over the last decade—an astronomical rate, compared to 8% population growth across the U.S.—but home prices have climbed 40% since 2020. Austin has been compared to “the next San Francisco” for a while now, but with emerging titles like “the new Seattle,” homebuyers are scrambling for land now, before prices skyrocket.
Featured Image Credit: Tesla via Instagram