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Elon Musk said on Tuesday that two of his companies, X and SpaceX, will move their headquarters from California to Texas as a response to new transgender laws in California, dealing a blow to Silicon Valley amid the billionaire’s long-running dispute with the state’s governor, Gavin Newsom.
On Monday, Newsom signed a bill banning California school districts from disclosing information about a student’s sexual orientation or gender identity to their parents, an effort to prevent “forced outing” of those students.
Musk, who has previously stirred controversy with his public statements about transgender people, said Newsom’s decision to sign the legislation was “the final straw”.
“Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas,” Musk posted on X.
The headquarters of the social media platform X would also move to Austin, he added in a later post.
Musk said he had communicated to Newsom a year ago that “laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children.”
Newsom’s office could not immediately be reached for comment.
Musk previously moved SpaceX’s legal incorporation from Delaware to Texas, after a court in Delaware struck down his record $56bn pay package from Tesla. He had also moved his brain implant company Neuralink’s legal headquarters from Delaware to Nevada.
Shareholders at Tesla, the electric-vehicle company that Musk runs, voted to approve his proposal to reincorporate the company in Texas last month.
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