San Francisco officials aren’t all that upset about X owner Elon Musk’s plans to take the social media company out of the city.
“I share the perspective that most San Franciscans have, which is a good riddance,” City Attorney David Chiu told The New York Times.
Musk announced in July that he would move X’s headquarters from San Francisco to Austin after California passed a law against “forced outing of LGBTQ+ students in schools.”
Musk has promoted anti-transgender content on his platform in the past, which his transgender daughter Vivian Jenna Wilson has criticized.
Elon Musk has said X’s headquarters will move from San Francisco to Austin. Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images
Last month, the billionaire also said he was unhappy with San Francisco’s “Gross Receipts Tax.”
“Even if SF’s high crime problem is solved tomorrow, X can’t stay in SF and start payments because it will immediately fail,” Musk wrote to X.
It is not entirely clear when X plans to move to Texas.
The Times reported earlier this month that X CEO Linda Yaccarino told employees they would move to offices in San Jose and that X would open an office in Palo Alto, both other cities in California.
“This is an important decision that affects many of you, but is the right one for our company in the long term,” the memo said.
For their part, local authorities in San Francisco seem fine with Musk’s decision to relocate.
London Mayor Breed told the Times that although she met with Musk “a few months ago” and sent him messages, she made no offers to convince X to stay in San Francisco.
“I’m not going to ask anyone,” Breed said.
Breed said he believes Musk’s political agenda, which has become significantly conservative, may have influenced his departure.
Musk’s time at the helm of Twitter — which he rebranded to X last year — has been tumultuous. After Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he laid off hundreds of employees. He then fired a second round of workers the night before Thanksgiving.
Ted Egan, San Francisco’s chief economist, said X’s presence has declined so much that its absence won’t affect the local economy.
“In many ways, they were already gone,” he told the publication.
Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.