Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately

[DanCar]

Elon Musk on Twitter
Tesla is filing a lawsuit against Alameda County immediately. The unelected & ignorant “Interim Health Officer” of Alameda is acting contrary to the Governor, the President, our Constitutional freedoms & just plain common sense!

Elon Musk on Twitter
Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependen on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.

 

[giantshark18]

Go Elon. The only thing CA offers is a customer base. No reason to build vehicles here.

 

[DanCar]

Go Elon. The only thing CA offers is a customer base. No reason to build vehicles here.

It is well known that California isn't friendly to manufacturers. Prioritizes everything else higher. If Tesla moves elsewhere, paint may improve, because CA limits the use of chemicals.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

Go Elon. The only thing CA offers is a customer base. No reason to build vehicles here.

There's also money from ZEV and carbon credits.

 

[SageBrush]

Go Elon. The only thing CA offers is a customer base. No reason to build vehicles here.

As if that was not important. But it is no where close to being true. CA offers massive human capital. Brains. Have you ever heard of Silicon Valley ? And CA offers a brilliant, progressive city in San Francisco. Brilliant young people want to work at Tesla, but they do not want to live in reactionary trumpertown, USA.

CA and Tesla need each other. They better learn to get along or each will suffer.

 

[drtimhill]

Indeed, much as I appreciate where Elon is coming from (and what percentage of this is just his ego), let’s not forgot that a VERY large percentage of the car value is software. Last time I looked Nevada was not known for its base of software engineers.

When things calm down, the reality is that design/development probably needs to be in CA for access to the technology and knowledge needed. Manufacturing can move somewhere with lower costs.

 

[DanCar]

... needs to be in CA for access to the technology and knowledge needed. Manufacturing can move somewhere with lower costs.

I'm in the bay area and have worked with a variety of teams. All the teams I've worked with had most of the talent imported from elsewhere. I would estimate nearly half imported from out of the country. What does it take to recruit top talent? Is it the ocean? Don't know. I do know there is a strong interest in people to move to lower cost regions.

 

[tashtibet]

Tesla is big & iconic doesn't need to attract talents-it's attracting talents from all over.

 

[banned-66611]

What a Muppet.

I bet he doesn't do it anyway. Does he really think those engineers will just follow him to Texas?

 

[SilverString]

I'd want out of California too...

 

[Uncle Paul]

There are talented people all over the world.

In San Francisco you need to pay more for that talent than most any place else.

The cost of living is sky high in SF. If Tesla moves, lots of them would be delighted to live in much less expensive and opressive areas.

Elon can still maintain a presence in SF as necessary, but from what I understand he has found a wealth of well educated and highly motivated technical people in China. Speaks highly of their work ethic.

Think California has screwed the pooch.

 

[drtimhill]

I'm in the bay area and have worked with a variety of teams. All the teams I've worked with had most of the talent imported from elsewhere. I would estimate nearly half imported from out of the country. What does it take to recruit top talent? Is it the ocean? Don't know. I do know there is a strong interest in people to move to lower cost regions.

I was in the Bay Area too for 15 years. It's complex .. a company makes a bet when it moves out of the area that it can tempt enough talent to go with it (based on lower cost of living or better lifestyle etc etc). Trouble is, that works for an employee only until they need to move jobs ... when they find there is nowhere else to go nearby. Not good. People know this, and so its hard to get them to relocate for that reason. On paper it looks great, but the intangibles get you every time.

And me? I shifted to Seattle for family reasons. I miss the Bay Area a lot, but I dont miss the cost of living (though Seattle is catching up), and there is of course enough tech here to make tech jobs easy to come by.

It remains to be seen if Covid will have a long-term effect on remote working culture. The company I work for has a very liberal WFH policy, including many who always WFH. The result is we've not been hit as hard as many by the shutdown, and already had the infrastructure in place. Of course, this only works for certain classes of jobs, but for tech workers it certainly seems to mean "work from anywhere" becomes plausible, and at that point how many people in the Bay Area will choose this?

 

[Sully151]

He better get the plants in Texas or Nevada built and operational before he shuts CA down. The last thing Tesla needs is to be backed up on deliveries. Especially with Audi, Ford, VW, Rivian, and a bunch of other cars hot on his EV heels.

 

[dipper]

I bet Fremont will not miss Tesla.

The 4000 manufacturing job can be replaced with 20k Tech workers making 3x those manufacturing jobs.

And the land is so expensive, Fremont could make more money than what Tesla paying to use now.

I think Fremont hopes Elon Musk would move.

 

[Uncle Paul]

SF is a great place to be an IT specialist. Not so great to be an employer. There are so many tech jobs that people can easily hop from one to another. They play one employer off another and have no loyality.

Companies must pay through the nose for even mediocre employees. Once they get them hired and trained they easliy jump to another tech company that just got more funding and can raise the anty even more.

It is the hot bed of technology companies, but once those companies mature, they are often compelled to move to a less expensive cost of living location.

Elon will figure it out...he always does.

SF is riding a bubble of technology companies. It should continue to be so for some time...but bubbles burst.

Hard to house employees when 100 year old decrepit homes start at $1 Million. Traffic is a nightmare and the BART is a haven for Covid 19. Gotta pay top dollar for mediocre employees, homeless line the streets and can be seen shooting up drugs when walking/driving your kids to school. Parking is impossible, the weather is gloomy, the schools are mediocre, restaurants and food stores are higher than normal.

People seem to be working it out there, but the stress levels are through the roof. Startups finding it more competitive than ever to gain funding and exit strategies are also falling apart.

But the real reason that Elon is moving is that he is a big believer in the American dream, where starting a company like Space X or Tesla is possible. He is now feeling the ornous pressure from govenmental actions that seem to be more controlling than supportive. Think he feel the best days of California are behind them...looking for greener and fresher pastures.

 

[DanCar]

Alameda County Public Health Department on Twitter
Quote: The Alameda County Health Care Services Agency and the Public Health Department have been communicating directly and working closely with the Tesla team on the ground in Fremont. This has been a collaborative, good faith effort to develop and implement a safety plan that allows for reopening while protecting the health and well-being of the thousands of employees who travel to and from work at Tesla’s factory. The team at Tesla has been responsive to our guidance and recommendations, and we look forward to coming to coming to an agreement on an appropriate safety plan very soon. We greatly value and support the important role of small and large businesses to our local economy and our communities. We appreciate that our residents and businesses have made tremendous sacrifices and that together we have been able to save lives and protect community health in our region. We need to continue to work together so those sacrifices don’t go to waste and that we maintain our gains. It is our collective responsibility to move through the phases of reopening and loosening the restrictions of the Shelter-in-Place Order in the safest way possible, guided by data and science.
/quote
I'm surprised how pro Tesla the replies to the tweet are.

 

[DanCar]

Robert Reich: Elon Musk threatens to take away people’s jobs unless he’s allowed to risk their health. Capitalism at its worst
Elon: You idiot
Elon Musk on Twitter

 

[Darren Donovan]

As if that was not important. But it is no where close to being true. CA offers massive human capital. Brains. Have you ever heard of Silicon Valley ? And CA offers a brilliant, progressive city in San Francisco. Brilliant young people want to work at Tesla, but they do not want to live in reactionary trumpertown, USA.

CA and Tesla need each other. They better learn to get along or each will suffer.

Progressive San Francisco, as in "sanctuary city"? Lol. Didn't an illegal person shoot and kill a US citizen at Pier 39 a few years ago, and SF refused to prosecute him?

 

[linux-works]

SF is a great place to be an IT specialist. Not so great to be an employer. There are so many tech jobs that people can easily hop from one to another. They play one employer off another and have no loyality.

that's a laugh. its just the opposite; companies have all the power, these days. 20 years ago it was different and, yes, I was one of the employees who went to different companies, got experience, different perspectives and raises each time. then, h1b laws changed the whole situation and it became a race to the bottom, in general. salaries fell, it was no longer an employees market, but still, it was silicon valley and there was good experience to be had if you looked.

its still much better for companies than employees. I could write pages about it and so could any other engineer who lives and works here.

Companies must pay through the nose for even mediocre employees. Once they get them hired and trained they easliy jump to another tech company that just got more funding and can raise the anty even more.

uhm, 'trained'? who does that? no one. you self-train, on your own time, often between jobs. you have to bring it, they don't 'give it'. wow, where are you living that you say that? that's simply not reality.

People seem to be working it out there, but the stress levels are through the roof.

its always been that way, in my experience, at least. its never been a 9-5. you do have to give up a lot if you want to stand out and move upward. but that's why you'd be here, though, isn't it? if you wanted to just settle in, you would not pay the high price of housing here and you would definitely have a more relaxed pace elsewhere in the country.

 

[linux-works]

I was in the Bay Area too for 15 years. It's complex .. a company makes a bet when it moves out of the area that it can tempt enough talent to go with it (based on lower cost of living or better lifestyle etc etc). Trouble is, that works for an employee only until they need to move jobs ... when they find there is nowhere else to go nearby. Not good. People know this, and so its hard to get them to relocate for that reason. On paper it looks great, but the intangibles get you every time.

this is what I'm saying; you form a company here because the talent you need is here; either because of existing competition or similar fields; or because people are drawn to the bay area, if they want to compete seriously in tech.

you don't form a company here thinking its going to save you money on land or labor. and you don't form a company here thinking you can 'pull funny stuff' like you can get away with in other less 'oversight' focused areas of the country.

you DO come here if you want a skilled and motivated work force. but you don't get that for free and you should not expect to, either.