Tesla, leading electric vehicle manufacturer, has reportedly announced the launch of its new engineering base in California, taking over Hewlett Packard's former Palo Alto premises. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, shared the news on Wednesday while being accompanied by Gavin Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, who referred to it as another proof point of the clean energy agility, that is California.

In 2003, Tesla was established in San Carlos, California, where it spent the majority of its 20 years. In response to the corporation's new Gigafactory that was being built in Texas state, the firm unexpectedly moved its headquarters to Austin in October 2021.

For the unversed, Tesla has Gigafactories in Nevada, Buffalo, Berlin, and Shanghai, among other places.

The firm's manufacturing unit in Fremont, California, just outside of San Francisco, is still in operation. Also, one of Tesla's major global markets is in California. As per sources, Musk has had a shakier relationship with the Golden State over time.

He earlier threatened to withdraw Tesla's overall operations out of California in 2020 based on his intense disagreement with the state's shelter-in-place regulations during the peak of the covid outbreak. In fact, Tesla even filed a lawsuit against the California county where its manufacturing is located as a kind of protest.

Musk relocated to Texas near the end of 2020 when SpaceX significantly proliferated its footprint in the state's southern tip. He claimed that he believed California's citizens and corporations had grown to be too comfortable.

Tesla, meanwhile, has continued to operate in California. The business is still making investments in its Fremont manufacturing and keeps its former Palo Alto headquarters operational. And over the years, California has made investments in Tesla via tax rebates among other taxpayer-funded benefits. As per Newsom's office, since 2009, California has spent over $3.2 billion in Tesla.

Source credit: https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/22/23610766/tesla-california-engineering-headquarters-elon-musk