A Florida congressman has invited Elon Musk to move Tesla's corporate headquarters from Texas to Florida. No Tesla response or relocation plan has been announced, Tesla North reported.
Rep. Carlos Gimenez announced the invitation on Nov. 11, sharing a letter to Musk dated Nov. 9. The request comes nearly five years after Tesla officially moved its headquarters to Giga Texas in Austin in December 2021, the site reported. "I write to formally invite Tesla to consider relocating its corporate headquarters and expanding its operations from Texas to the free State of Florida," Gimenez wrote.
The letter pitches South Florida as a gateway to Latin America and the Caribbean. Gimenez also points to the region's infrastructure, technology sector and workforce as reasons Tesla should consider expanding there, Tesla North reported. He tied his pitch to politics, raising concerns about recently elected Texas politicians he described as Democratic Socialists. His office said he was worried about government interference, investigations and policies that could hurt businesses. Those are the congressman's arguments for a move, rather than evidence Tesla has decided to leave Texas.
Neither the letter nor the announcement includes an acceptance or response from Tesla. There is no relocation timetable, selected Florida headquarters site or announced agreement in the documents, the report said.
In a Nov. 7 reply on X, Musk defended the business climate that brought Tesla and SpaceX to Texas. He was responding to a WSJ Politics post saying Texas Democrats planned to change what the outlet called the companies' "white-glove treatment" from elected officials, Tesla North reported. "SpaceX and Tesla have prospered in Texas, because we were not constantly operating under an oppressive and extractive state government," Musk wrote. He said he needs to stay close to his factories so he can walk the floors in person, and blamed California's "extreme taxes and overregulation" for shifting major domestic expansions and headquarters to Texas. The post did not announce plans to leave Texas or mention a move to Florida.
Tesla's Texas operations remain central to its current plans. Musk has said Cybertruck production will continue through the end of summer 2027 as the company works through more of its order backlog, and Tesla has outlined a major expansion of 4680 battery production at Giga Texas. Those factory plans are separate from Gimenez's headquarters request.
Tesla's corporate headquarters was previously in Palo Alto, California. The later move to Giga Texas took effect on Dec. 1, 2021. When Musk announced the Austin move on Oct. 7, 2021, he pointed to expensive housing, long commutes and limited room to expand in the Bay Area. In February 2023, he and Governor Gavin Newsom announced Tesla's global engineering headquarters in Palo Alto, at Hewlett Packard's former headquarters. That engineering base is separate from the corporate headquarters in Texas.
Tesla's current corporate listing still gives its headquarters as 1 Tesla Road, Austin, Texas 78725. Its official office directory separately lists the engineering headquarters at 1501 Page Mill Road in Palo Alto, Tesla North reported. The congressman's announcement makes the pitch public, but it does not establish that Tesla is considering it. Any headquarters decision would have to come from the company.