Elon Musk's most senior Tesla employees were left blindsided by the CEO's sudden decision to relocate the company from California to Texas earlier this month - only finding out about it when Musk first announced the planned move to shareholders three weeks ago, a top California politician has revealed.
'Elon didn't even tell his team,' California Gov. Gavin Newsom's principal economic advisor Dee Dee Williams revealed during a press call with several news outlets when asked if the state had received any advanced notice of Musk's plans, Bloomberg reported after taking part in the call Tuesday afternoon.
'We later talked to the leadership in his offices in California, who did not know until he made that announcement,' Myers then confirmed. She spoke days after a $4.2 billion deal with Hertz to buy 100,000 Teslas sent the firm's value soaring to $1 trillion.
Musk first announced the prospective move to attendees of company's annual shareholder meeting on October 7, which was held at a factory Tesla is building outside the city of Austin - the very location Musk says will become the company's new base of operations
California Gov. Gavin Newsom's principal economic advisor Dee Dee Williams revealed during a press call Tuesday that Elon Musk's most senior Tesla employees were left blindsided by the CEO's sudden decision to relocate the company from California to Texas earlier this month - only finding out about it when Musk first announced it to shareholders three weeks ago
Despite the lawmaker's claims, it remains unclear if any Tesla employees, senior or otherwise, were notified about the move beforehand.
The revelation comes mere weeks after Musk first announced the prospective move to attendees of company's annual shareholder meeting on October 7, which was held at a factory Tesla is building outside the city of Austin - the very location Musk says will become the company's new base of operations.
The move makes good on a threat Musk issued more than a year ago to the top brass of the Golden State, after the colorful CEO was left frustrated by local coronavirus lockdown orders that forced the company to pause production at its factory in Fremont.
The site of the new Tesla factory in Austin, Texas, that Musk is looking to move the company's operations to. As of October 25, when this photo was taken, the structure is still being built
Musk was an outspoken early critic of pandemic restrictions, calling them 'fascist' - and predicting in March 2020 that there would be almost no new COVID cases by the end of April of that year.
The Tesla Chief Executive also cited the high cost of housing and the long commutes for his employees as reasons behind the move, despite not notifying them about it, says Myers.
Moreover, the move to Texas has tax implications - both personal and business - for Musk and his company.
California boasts the nation's highest personal income tax and capital gains tax rates, of approximately 13.3 percent each. Texas has no state income tax or capital gains tax on company profits, although people living there must still pay federal levies.
What's more, those come in addition to similar charges collected at the federal level, which then increase the overall total for a given individual.
Musk recently became the world's richest person, with his fortune just short of $300 billion - however, a great deal of his wealth is explicably linked to stock options that hinge on Tesla reaching certain financial targets.
With that said, the billionaire is required to pay a slew of state capital gains taxes and personal income tax every time he exercises those options.
