ELON Musk has decided to ditch “entitled” California for Texas as he put seven of his enormous mansions on the market.
The Tesla CEO referenced his move at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council annual summit on Tuesday.
Musk had previously told pals he planned to leave as his ongoing feud with California lawmakers over their coronavirus rules continues.
The billionaire said California “has been winning for a long time” in the area of innovation but has also been “taking it for granted a little bit.”
“They do tend to get a little complacent, a little entitled, and then they don’t win the championship anymore,” said Musk, who has resided in the Golden State for nearly two decades.
During the meeting on Tuesday, he told Editor in Chief Matt Murray that although Tesla and SpaceX are headquartered in CA, he had other business interests elsewhere.
He said “there’s a lot of things that are really great about California” but felt they took their situation for granted after hinting that he’d be leaving the state soon.
“We’ve got the Starship development here in South Texas, where I am right now,” Musk said. “And then we’ve got big factory developments just outside Austin.”
Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas tweeted a welcome to Musk after news of his move emerged.
“Texas loves jobs & we’re very glad to have you as a Texan,” he wrote.
Musk’s summit comments came after several of his close friends told CNBC that the Tesla CEO plans to permanently change his residence to Texas where his SpaceX and Boring Company already have operations.
In May, he said Tesla would “now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately” after local officials refused to reopen his Fremont factory during the Covid-19 crisis, saying it was the “final straw.”
Musk has repeatedly raged against California’s “fascist” handling of the coronavirus and the closure of Tesla’s factories.
In March, Alameda County officials told Tesla it was not exempt from an order requiring nonessential businesses to shut down – but the carmaker continued operations claiming it was “national critical infrastructure.”
At the start of the summer, he put an array of his impressive homes up for sale after vowing to sell all of his possessions – including his six mansions in the exclusive Bel Air neighborhood in Los Angeles.
These included a $30million seven-bed mansion and a a ranch house across the street once owned by comedic actor Gene Wilder, which he has turned into a private school for his own kids.
Speaking to Vogue in 2015, he described it as “like a little schoolhouse on the prairie, except in Bel-Air on a golf course.”
Musk also listed four other homes valued at $62.5million, as well as his “Boomerang” pad, which he sold last year.