“I am excited to announce that we are moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas,” Musk said at the annual shareholders meeting. “Just to be clear, we will continue to expand our activities california”
The billionaire entrepreneur said Tesla’s sales are growing strongly, and the company is accelerating deliveries despite a shortage of computer chips and other components.
Musk said the maker of the best-selling Model 3 aims to increase production at its plant in Fremont, California, by about 50%. But that plant is hitting its limits in how much more it can handle, he said. Musk said of his inaugural plant in Silicon Valley, “When we first went there it was like a kid in his parents’ shoes; make us and this giant factory smaller.” “Now, it’s like a Spam can. We’re hitting the sides of the bowl.”
The cost of living in Silicon Valley is high for workers, Musk said, adding that home prices put them out of reach of workers who often wind up with long commutes. The Tesla CEO has clashed with regulators in California, and is among high-profile tech figures who personally left the state for places with lower income taxes and less regulation.
“It was a smart strategic move for Tesla,” said Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives. “We believe this was the first step toward Tesla making Austin its domestic and global foundation for the coming decade, with California officials recently disappointed with the prospect of accelerating the move.”
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winning with diversity
According to preliminary results, the board of directors approved a proposal submitted by a shareholder to disclose more about the diversity and inclusion efforts in the company, despite opposition. It calls for a broad breakdown of Tesla’s workforce by race and gender, as well as how well its efforts to improve diversity should be regularly disclosed to investors.
“The business case for diversity is clear,” said Kimberly Stokes, Calvert Research and Management vice president, who spoke on behalf of the proposal. “As shareholders we are concerned that Tesla’s lack of focus on equity, diversity and inclusion could hinder the company’s potential in the future.”
Calvert’s winning proposal was one of four on the agenda by investors asking Tesla to better protect workers’ rights and welfare.
A California jury this week ordered Tesla to pay $137 million in damages to a black former employee for turning a blind eye to racism the man said he was facing at the firm’s Silicon Valley auto plant. “They provided an amount that could be a wake-up call to American corporations,” said Larry Organ, a civil rights attorney representing the former Tesla worker. “Do not engage in racist conduct and do not allow racist conduct to continue.”
Owen Diaz was hired through a staffing agency as an elevator operator at the EV manufacturer’s Fremont factory between June 2015 and July 2016, where he was subjected to racist abuse and a hostile work environment, according to the court. According to the filing of Instead of a modern workplace, the plaintiffs “faced a scene straight out of the Jim Crow era”, the suit said.
A jury in federal court in San Francisco on Monday awarded Diaz $130 million in punitive damages and $6.9 million for emotional distress, Organ confirmed.
In a post, Tesla’s HR Vice President Valerie Kepers Workman downplayed the allegations of racist abuse in the lawsuit, but acknowledged that Tesla “wasn’t right” at the time Diaz worked there. Workman said the company has made changes since Diaz worked there, adding a diversity team and employee relations team dedicated to investigating employee complaints.