X leaves Twitter building in San Francisco – but remains in California
X employees have to move to San José and Palo Alto. Musk actually wanted to leave California.
(Image: Larry Zhou/Shutterstock.com)
Elon Musk recently announced that X is moving. He actually wanted to turn his back on California, but apparently he won't get quite that far after all. However, the employees will have to move from San Francisco to San José or Palo Alto.
Twitter was founded in San Francisco in 2006. Twitter has had its headquarters since 2012 and also has X on Market Street. This runs right through the city and is one of the largest and most important streets. Musk had complained that he had to pass "gangs of violent drug addicts" to get to his office. It's hard to imagine that there are gangs living between his car and the entrance to the courtyard.
However, many homeless people have been living in San Francisco for years or even decades. The crime rate is correspondingly high. With the first tech boom and the rise of Silicon Valley as a tech hub, many people could no longer afford the rents back in the 2000s. Tragically, as rents rose, the city also began to decline. Conservative people in particular, including Musk, even sense the city's decline. After the coronavirus pandemic, employees have been slow to return to the offices, and the city's vacancy rates are now enormous. San Francisco is hoping for a new AI boom in the city.
Musk had also publicly railed against a new Californian law. This makes it more difficult for schools to inform parents about their children's sexual orientation. The children's consent is required for this. Musk wrote on X that this law was the last straw that broke the camel's back - and thus the reason for X's move. According to this, X was actually supposed to go all the way to Texas. His space company SpaceX has also already moved there. However, SpaceX was already based in parts of Texas. The further move mainly affects employees at the headquarters, who were based in the Los Angeles area.
120 employees have to move
For X, the cities of Palo Alto and San José, which are located outside San Francisco, will now have to do it for the moment – there are already outsourced offices in both cities. As reported by the financial service Bloomberg, X boss Linda Yaccarino is said to have informed employees of this by email. The developers will be based in Palo Alto and the other employees in San José. Bloomberg reports, about the San Francisco mayor's office, that 120 jobs are involved. The building on Market Street has much more capacity, which is apparently vacant. Musk had laid off numerous people after the takeover of X, but also brought some back, although many also left voluntarily.
(emw)
