Elon Musk says X and SpaceX will leave California over new trans law

Elon Musk has announced plans to move the headquarters of X and SpaceX out of California, after the state passed a new law that explicitly prohibits school districts outing trans students to their parents. 

On Monday (15 July), Democrat governor Gavin Newsom signed the bill, known as the Safety Act, which prevents schools creating policies that could potentially out LGBTQ+ – most notably, transgender – students by telling their parents about a name change, pronoun change or their identity.

Musk, who recently suggested he wants to remove the “groomer” slur from X/Twitter’s list of discriminatory terms, described the new legislation as the “final straw”.

He went on to say: “Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.” Later, he added: “And X HQ [currently in San Francisco] will move to Austin [also in Texas]… many will follow.”

Speaking last month, assembly member Chris Ward, who proposed the Safety Act, said it came about because of a “growing national attack on LGBTQ+ people and in particular transgender individuals”, highlighting that several Californian school districts and other states had enacted policies that force teachers to out trans kids to their parents.

“Forced outing policies harm everyone: parents, families and school staff, by unnecessarily compelling the staff to involve themselves in family matters and removing the opportunity for families to build trust and have conversations on their own terms,” Ward continued.

This is not the first time Musk – whose trans daughter wants nothing to do with him – has taken aim at policies which protect members of the LGBTQ+ community. In 2020 the Tesla chief executive was criticised for making anti-trans statements, including tweeting “pronouns suck” and “pronouns are an aesthetic nightmare”.

Following his takeover of Twitter, since renamed X, Musk has taken steps to roll back anti-hate protection policies on the social media platform, such as those against misgendering and deadnaming.

The policy which prohibited “targeted harassment, including repeated slurs, tropes” or content intended to dehumanise protected categories, had been in effect since 2018 – prior to Musk’s acquisition of the platform – but was dropped in 2023 by the billionaire businessman.

The policy was “quietly” brought back in March but not before transphobic abuse on the site had rocketed.

Also last year, Musk announced plans to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) for allegedly spreading “misleading claims” about the social media platform’s failure to target hate speech.

In research conducted by the CCDH, consisting of eight papers, the organisation claimed X had taken no action against 99 per cent of the 100 Twitter Blue accounts the centre had reported for “tweeting hate”.