Elon Musk says California is still better than Texas in at least one key way: hiring.
After moving SpaceX and Tesla Inc.’s headquarters to Texas in recent years for political reasons, he said it’s still easier to hire in California. But there is one exception.
“Austin, that helps,” Musk said, noting that the majority of Tesla’s engineering capabilities are still located in California. “Having the engineers move…that’s what I call another important issue.”
This is why Starbase has the most difficulty recruiting engineering staff. Starbase is a remote outpost in South Texas where SpaceX is developing its Starship giant rocket.
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“This is especially difficult for Starbase because the odds of finding a non-SpaceX job are very low,” Musk said. “It’s very difficult. It’s like a technical monastery, it’s remote and it’s mostly men.”
Spouses are often reluctant to move to remote areas, he said.
Musk’s company also has operations in Robstown-McGregor, Bastrop and other locations across the state.
He revealed the issues in a chat on the Cheeky Pint podcast and accused tech giant Apple of trying to poach Tesla’s talent while it was developing its own self-driving electric car, a project that was later cancelled.
“They’re carpet-bombing Tesla with recruiting calls,” Musk said. He claims their opening offer was roughly double Tesla’s salary, indicating what he calls the “Tesla fairy dust” factor, where other companies think if they can hire someone from Tesla, that employee will put them on a track to success.
“When we have a fairy dust problem, we’re recruited relentlessly,” Musk said. “Also, Tesla is an engineering company, and especially primarily in Silicon Valley, it’s easier for people… they don’t have to change their lives. Their commute is going to be the same.”
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Musk has long tried to attract tech talent to Texas, a move he’s pushing again after last week’s announcement of SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI. Days after giving notice of the plan, Starlink vice president of engineering Michael Nicolls said the SpaceX-owned satellite company is hiring for key engineering positions to develop space-based artificial intelligence satellite technology at the company’s facilities in Austin and Seattle.
