SpaceX and Twitter “Gone to Texas” Could Bankrupt California
Written by Chriss Street
Elon Musk moving SpaceX and Twitter to Texas will cost California at least $15 billion a year in lost tax revenue and threaten to bankrupt the state, as about 500 of California’s 8,300 highest taxpaying families that make over $5 million a year follow Musk to Texas.
Musk stated on X (Twitter) response to Gov. Gavin Newsom signing a bill last week that on Monday that makes California the first state in the nation to prohibit public school personnel from telling parents when their children ask to switch gendered names or pronouns: “This is the final straw.” Musk complained that because the new law is “attacking both families and companies,” he would move SpaceX from Hawthorne, CA, to Starbase, TX, and X “HQ” (Twitter headquarters) from San Francisco to Austin, TX.
Musk is authentic about his revulsion from California the anti-family legislation, but he also is the richest man in the world with a net worth of $242.6 billion. Musk expects to get a $ $56 billion bonus from Tesla next year, a $1 billion gain from Truth Social, and his stake in SpaceX could be worth $175 billion. California with the highest state tax rate burden in the nation, expected to collect $11 billion in personal, corporate and capital gains taxes from Musk and his businesses.
Furthermore, with about 8,300 of the highest income earning families paying about 20% of all California’s state taxes each year. Musk, SpaceX and Twitter leaving means that another 500 of the state’s highest taxpayers that are employed by the companies or provide vendor services to the companies, will also soon be “Gone to Texas.”
California approved a $288 billion budget spending plan for the 2024-2025 Fiscal Year that began July 1st. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) estimated that California would face a deficit exceeding $33.1 billion for this fiscal year. But that was before the SpaceX and Twitter moves that will increase the deficit to over $48 billion.
The Mountain Top Times reported ‘California Prop 36 Restores Property & Drug Felonies And Bankrupts State’ last week The wildly popular initiative that would recriminalize most property and drug related offences under $950, that has for a decade allowed California to release about 75,000 prisoners back on the streets. If the wildly popular initiative passes on November 5th, judges will again issue felony sentences and California will have to again spend another $12-$16 billion a year more on prisons.
SpaceX already has plenty of land to absorb the California staff at its rapidly expanding rocket production, launch and control center in Brownsville, TX. But timing and scale of the relocation accelerated on July 17th when NASA announced SpaceX was awarded the contract to retire and recover the 26-year-old International Space State (ISS).
The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has already completed 42 missions to the ISS. The initial $843 million NASA contract will fund a 400% increase in the power of the Dragon system to achieve a 600% increase in the spaceplane carrying capacity.
Giga Texas Austin began a $100 million construction project in February for a 5-story office building to house Twitter’s X HQ in 2025. SpaceX began a $100 million construction project in Brownsville called “SpaceX Starbase Office that includes office and a 15 football fields long factory that will be completed in mid-2025. That means employees and vendors are already leaving California for Texas that has no income tax
.