Officials in San Francisco aren’t all that torn up over X owner Elon Musk’s plans to take the social media company out of town.
“I share the perspective that most San Franciscans have, which is good riddance,” City Attorney David Chiu told The New York Times.
Musk announced in July that he would move the X headquarters from San Francisco to Austin after California passed a law against “forced outings of LGBTQ+ students in schools.”
Musk has promoted anti-trans content on his platform in the past, which his transgender daughter, Vivian Jenna Wilson, criticized.
Last month, The billionaire also said he was unhappy with San Francisco’s “gross receipt tax.”
“Even if the severe crime problem in SF were to be solved tomorrow, X could not remain in SF and launch payments, as it would immediately fail,” Musk wrote on X.
It’s not entirely clear when X plans to relocate to Texas.
The Times reported earlier this month that X CEO Linda Yaccarino told staffers they would move to offices in San Jose and that X would open an office in Palo Alto, both of which — notably — are other cities in California.
“This is an important decision that impacts many of you, but it is the right one for our company in the long term,” the memo said.
For their part, local officials in San Francisco seem fine with Musk’s decision to relocate.
Mayor London Breed told the Times that despite meeting with Musk “several months ago” and texting him, she had not made offers to convince X to stay in San Francisco.
“I’m not going to beg anybody,” Breed said.
Breed said she believed Musk’s political agenda, which has become notably conservative, may have influenced his exit.
Musk’s time heading Twiter — which he rebranded to X last year — has been tumultuous. After Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he fired hundreds of employees. He then laid off a second round of workers the night before Thanksgiving.
Ted Egan, San Francisco’s chief economist, said X’s presence has shrunk so much that its absence wouldn’t affect the local economy.
“In many respects, they were already gone,” he told the outlet.
Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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