This time no tweet, but a statement with great fanfare during the shareholders’ meeting: so Elon Musk (in his own way) breaks the mold (returning to it) but always leaves everyone stunned: “Tesla will move its headquarters in Palo Alto, in California to Texas “. The new headquarters? In Austin, but the farewell to Silicon Valley for a company that symbolizes the most innovative area on the planet, is a sensational choice, even if Musk has made it clear that “we will continue to expand our activities in California”.
Elon Musk at Italian Tech Week 2021: the dialogue on the future with John Elkann and Maurizio Molinari
The choice of Austin, however, is not accidental: here lies – indeed it will arise because it will take time to reach full production even after it has been completed – the key plant for Tesla’s development. And Musk intends to follow the development of the new models step by step by concentrating headquarters, design and production in one place. Just like the big car manufacturers around the world do.
In short, Musk also realized that a car is not a mobile phone and that it is not possible to do as Apple does, leaving the heart of the company in California and production in China: moving the headquarters from Paolo Alto to Austin is so much more than a symbol. It is the keystone of Tesla’s future development. In fact, remember that Musk is opening a huge factory in China. Goal: half a million cars a year. It is the first outside national borders – in Shanghai – to circumvent the tariffs of the China-US trade war and to launch the global challenge. The aim is to make the largest foreign investment for Tesla and it is known that the eventual annual production of 500,000 vehicles from the Chinese factory would drastically increase the production of the US giant and would allow more direct access to the largest electric vehicle market in the world.
But there is more: Tesla’s first production line outside the United States risks being a point of no return for the whole industry because – as we know – China requires all companies to create joint ventures with domestic enterprises when establishing production facilities, which involves sharing profits and technology with local partners. And if the Tesla, the very symbol of made in the USA, lowers its head, it really means that the revolution is upon us. And if this symbol leaves Silicon Valley, perhaps this revolution is already beyond the door.
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