Elon Musk vows to move X, SpaceX headquarters out of California, citing trans privacy law

SACRAMENTO, California — Elon Musk said Tuesday he would move the headquarters of social media platform X and rocket maker SpaceX out of California after the state’s Gov. Gavin Newsom approved new protections for transgender and gay students in schools.

The law, signed by Newsom on Monday, prevents schools from requiring staff to notify parents whose children show signs of being transgender or sharing information about their sexual orientation. The law was drafted in response to a so-called parents’ rights movement that has seen at least seven school boards in the state pass rules within the last year that forced teachers to tell parents if their child starts using a name or pronoun that doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth.

“This is the final straw,” said Musk, who has a transgender daughter from whom he is reportedly estranged . He added the decision was "because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies."

As a result, Musk wrote on X that he would move the headquarters for SpaceX from Hawthorne in Southern California to Starbase in Texas. X, which is headquartered in downtown San Francisco, will move to Austin, Musk said.

This is not the first time he’s threatened to leave California over political differences. During the pandemic, Musk also sued California and threatened to move Tesla HQ to Texas due to the state’s Covid-19 restrictions, which were among the most cautious in the nation. In early 2023, Musk brought part of Tesla’s operations back to California, opening up engineering headquarters back in Silicon Valley.

And while Musk on Tuesday blamed the new transgender protections for the impending move, prior media reports had indicated he was contemplating relocation for X before Newsom signed the law.

Musk has grown increasingly vocal and conservative in his political views in recent years, often putting him at odds with the Democratic leadership in California. Earlier this week, he announced he would funnel $45 million a month into a political action committee to support former President Donald Trump.

His reaction to the new transgender law was praised by another notable California conservative — former decathlete Caitlyn Jenner , who came out as transgender in 2015.

Newsom’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The governor in the past has lavished praise on the billionaire , despite Musk’s criticism of the state, saying in 2021 that he has “reverence and deep respect for that individual.”

Later on X on Tuesday, Newsom wrote "You bent the knee," referencing a Truth Social post by Trump in which the former president claimed he could once get Musk to "drop to [his] knees and beg."

One member of the state Legislature’s LGBTQ caucus, San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener, called Musk “a textbook example of why kids shouldn’t be forced to come out to their parents.”