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X/Twitter Announces all Remaining San Francisco Employees to be Moved To Palo Alto, San Jose
Announcement will complete the pull out of X/Twitter from San Francisco
By Evan Symon, August 6, 2024 12:47 pm
According to an internal e-mail from X CEO Linda Yaccarino, X’s San Francisco office is to close in the coming weeks, with all offices being moved to sites either in San Jose or Palo Alto.
Since 2020, Elon Musk has gradually moved himself and his companies – social media company X, automotive company Tesla, and aerospace company Space X – more and more out of California. While high taxes and a growing number of regulations have always played against Musk’s companies in California, it was during the pandemic that Musk first began threatening that he and his companies would leave the state over COVID-19 restrictions. In December 2020, Musk announced that he would be moving out of California and to Texas over high taxes and other issues. This was then followed up in October 2021 when Musk moved the headquarters of Tesla from Palo Alto to Austin.
While Tesla’s headquarters was moved, Musk still held a commitment in the state, with Space X remaining in Hawthorne and Tesla having several factories across the Golden State, including a car factory in Fremont. However pullout worries continued, especially after Musk formally bought Twitter in October 2022 for $44 billion. Almost immediately, there were rumors that he would be moving the company out of San Francisco. Twitter was also soon rebranded as X, with Musk firing or laying off much of the staff.
In 2023, Musk had an odd year with the state of California, as he had moved his AI division back to Palo Alto from Texas while also hinting again of X moving out of California. However, in 2024, Musk went forward cutting ties with California. In April, over 3,000 Tesla employees were fired in California, with CalSTRS fighting back last month by voting against Musk’s $50 billion compensation package. Undeterred, X announced in early July that they would be leasing their San Francisco HQ building, pointing at an imminent move. This turned out to be true, with Musk announcing a week later that the headquarters of both X and SpaceX would be moving to Texas.
Despite this, both companies, like Tesla after their HQ move to Texas, are to retain a large presence in California. For X, the Bay Area is a major tech and start-up hub, especially with AI companies there booming. Keeping a large presence there is critical for the future. But with the company already leasing out their headquarters, any future in San Francisco proper remained in doubt. These fears proved out on Monday, with the e-mail stating that the office would be closing for good in San Francisco, and all remaining workers would now be working in the South Bay in either an engineering office in Palo Alto, or in San Jose.
“X is actively working on plans, including transportation options, for those directly impacted,” said Yaccarino in the e-mail. “This is an important decision that impacts many of you, but it is the right one for our company in the long term.”
X moves completely out of San Francisco
While X did not comment on the situation further, many in San Francisco did, as the city stands to lose even more tax money with the company’s departure expected to hurt the office vacancy rate even more.
“We are aware of Elon’s plans to move a small remaining number of employees from X’s HQ out of San Francisco,” said Mayor London Breed’s deputy communications director Parisa Safarzadeh. “Our focus remains on working with and supporting the many businesses that call S.F. home, from global headquarters to leading AI companies, and thousands of small businesses.”
Those in the tech industry noted that while the move was expected, the void of Twitter/X in San Francisco after being there for nearly two decades is palpable, both to the tech industry and San Francisco.
“We all saw this coming,” said Anthony Ferry, a San Francisco tech consultant, to the Globe on Tuesday. “As soon as they had the space up for lease, you just knew they were done.”
“The feeling here is, I don’t want to say one of shock, but one of rough acceptance. The Mayor’s office response, for example, was one of just getting past the issue. ‘We know, but look at all the other companies who stayed!’ That sort of feeling. AI is there as are most major tech industries, but X leaving for the South Bay is a big snub to San Francisco. They have been losing tech companies to San Jose and other cities for awhile now. Those that haven’t gone out of state. And it’s pretty incredible. They even tried to make it seem that only a few employees would be moving out, but there are still many in San Francisco, and now they are losing them.”
“Those jobs, at least some of them, will stay in the Bay Area. Every tech company needs a presence there. But it isn’t going to be in San Francisco. Not one Twitter office job will remain in San Francisco now, the city where it was founded and had thousands of employees at one time.”
As of Tuesday, it is unknown if any of the office space in their now former San Francisco headquarters building has been leased.
