SpaceX to move from Hawthorne to Texas, Elon Musk announces – Orange County Register

SpaceX, the massive aerospace company known for its innovative rockets and space capsules — with billions of dollars in federal government contracts — will move its headquarters from Hawthorne to Texas, founder Elon Musk announced on X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday (July 16).

While the precise impact is not immediately known, the relocation could prove a major blow to the South Bay and the regional economy, although at least one economist has expressed doubts about that.

SpaceX, according to a September 2023 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, employs more than 13,000 people at its facilities across the country, including in California.

The aerospace industry as a whole, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, accounts for more than 57,000 jobs countywide — with an average salary of $136,473, in 2022.

Hawthorne city officials declined to comment on the company’s decision to move or answer questions about how the move might impact the local job market.

Musk, who also announced that X would be moving from San Francisco to Austin, said a new law signed Monday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom banning school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child’s gender identification change was the “straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“I made it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and businesses to leave California to protect their children,” Musk wrote.

Tesla, of which Musk is CEO, moved its headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin in 2021.

Musk also said he had moved his residence from California to Texas, where there is no personal income tax.

Musk has also become increasingly involved in politics in recent months, throwing his support behind former President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign just minutes after Trump was ejected from the stage at his rally in Pennsylvania.

Musk has resisted making major political donations in the past, and has even gone so far as to say he tries to stay away from politics, despite his conservative rhetoric on immigration and cultural issues.

According to an economic expert, this measure may not have as big an impact on the local economy as it seems.

“The headquarters is where the top executives and some of their operational managers meet,” Christopher Thornberg, a founding partner at Beacon Economics, said in an interview Tuesday. “We don’t know if they’re going to move some of their production facilities, one or more of their production workers or their management.”

There are many other companies that have also moved their headquarters out of California in the past — including Toyota and Boeing — which has had little real impact on the state’s job market, Thornberg said.

And even if Musk decides to move SpaceX’s largest operations out of state, it remains to be seen whether that will also have a material impact on the local economy.

“It’s an extremely expensive decision to make,” Thornberg said. “(And) the people who live here, live here for a reason — and you’re not going to convince a lot of those people to up and move to Texas, it’s that simple.”

For those reasons, Thornberg said, moving a significant portion of SpaceX’s actual commercial operations to another state would likely be a difficult and questionable financial decision.

“Does Musk really want to lose half his workforce?” Thornberg asked. “The expertise to do this kind of thing is not easy to find.”

Tuesday’s announcement, Thornberg added, appears to be more of a political statement than anything else.

“He’s just making a statement, he’s acting like a wayward kid,” Thornberg said. “You don’t stomp your foot and say, ‘I’m taking my ball and I’m not playing anymore,’ right? If you want to change California, do it and be a positive influence.”

It is not yet clear what impact this decision will have on SpaceX’s other commercial operations in Southern California.

For example, the company subleased a marine terminal at the Port of Long Beach to house its rocket recovery operations on the West Coast in 2021.

Long Beach city officials hailed SpaceX’s arrival at the port as another victory for “Space Beach” — the city’s colloquial term for its aerospace industry — saying it further cements the city as an industry leader.

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson announced earlier this month that SpaceX had renewed its POLB lease for an additional five years and plans to double the facility’s footprint.

But given today’s news, it’s not clear that’s still the case. Port and SpaceX officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

The Associated Press and The New York Times contributed to this report.

This is a breaking news story; watch for updates.