On July 16, Elon Musk announced that he would be moving the headquarters of X and SpaceX from California to Texas in response to Governor Gavin Newsom’s passage of Bill AB1955, which he criticized as anti-family. Musk also cited California’s hostile regulatory climate as a reason for the relocation.
According to the billionaire, the X headquarters will move to Austin, Texas, and the SpaceX headquarters will move to Starbase, Texas.
Following his announcement, Musk remarked that he “Had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building” before commenting on the bill, which he says would prevent schools from notifying parents if their child identified as transgender.
"I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children."
California: hostile to crypto?
Musk has been a vocal supporter of cryptocurrencies in the past, though his position on Bitcoin mining changed in 2021. California has one of the strictest financial regulatory climates in the United States, which directly impacts crypto.
In 2023, Gavin Newsom signed the “Digital Financial Assets Law,” which imposed strict reporting requirements and required entities and individuals to obtain a Department of Financial Protection and Innovation (DFPI) license to conduct certain crypto activities.
Related: Elon Musk’s X could face $200M EU fines over alleged DSA violations
The bill, which is set to take effect in 2025, also requires those holding the license to maintain business records and sensitive data for five years.
Earlier, in 2022, Newsom declined to sign a similar bill, arguing that this attempt to regulate crypto markets failed to create watertight regulations that would keep up with the evolving digital asset landscape.
More recently, a California judge allowed a lawsuit accusing Ripple of selling unregistered securities to move forward despite an earlier ruling from Judge Analisa Torres, which established that secondary sales of XRP (XRP) did not constitute securities sales. The ruling was based on the view that XRP tokens do not meet the Securities and Exchange Commission’s criteria of security under the Howey test.
Judge Phyllis Hamilton’s approval of the case will leave it to a jury to decide whether Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse made "misleading statements" in 2017 regarding his public convictions toward XRP while simultaneously selling some of his holdings.
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