Category Archives: Elon Musk

Austin Mayor Steve Adler on Tesla moving its headquarters to the city, why its a desirable place and his meeting with Elon Musk.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk warned Sunday against turning the city of Austin, Texas, into a "San Francisco copycat."

"Austin should be its city, not a San Francisco copycat," the billionaire tweeted.

ELON MUSK ANNOUNCES TESLA IS MOVING ITS HEADQUARTERS TO AUSTIN

Musk was responding to a Fox News report earlier Sunday about the proposal in Austin to bulk up the citys police department and a series of reports on the city's record number of homicides in 2021.

Proposition A, a ballot measure for the Nov. 2 election backed by the group Save Austin Now, would require at least two Austin police officers for every 1,000 residents and would provide officers with an additional 40 hours of police training each year on topics such as weapons proficiency and active shooter scenarios.

It comes after the Austin City Council voted in the wake of the George Floyd protests last year to cut up to $150 million from its police department budget a little more than a third of its total budget and reinvest that money into other public services.Since then, the city has experienced a nearly 71% increase in homicides.

FILE - In this Dec. 1, 2020, file photo, SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk arrives on the red carpet for the Axel Springer media award, in Berlin. Tesla says it has invested more than $1 billion in Bitcoin and will accept the digital currency as p (AP Newsroom)

Musk made headlines earlier this month after he announced Teslas headquarters will be moving to Austin from Fremont, California, in part because of the cost of living.

"I'm excited to announce that we're moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas," Musk said during Teslas annual stockholders meeting on Oct. 7.

He said the electric car maker will "continue to expand in California, significantly but even more so here in Texas."

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FILE PHOTO: SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO Elon Musk visits the construction site of Tesla's gigafactory in Gruenheide, near Berlin, Germany, May 17, 2021. REUTERS/Michele Tantussi/File Photo (REUTERS/Michele Tantussi / Reuters Photos)

"Its tough for people to afford houses and a lot of people have to come in from far away," he said. "Weve taken it as far as possible buttheres a limit to how big you can scale it in the Bay Area."

"Here in Austin, our factorys like five minutes from the airport, 15 minutes from downtown, and were going to create an ecological paradise here because were right on the Colorado River," he added. "Its gonna be great."

Fox News Breck Dumas contributed to this report.

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Elon Musk warns Austin, Texas, not to become a 'copycat ...

Washington D.C., Sept. 29, 2018

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that Elon Musk, CEO and Chairman of Silicon Valley-based TeslaInc., has agreed to settle the securities fraud charge brought by the SEC against him last week. The SEC also today charged Tesla with failing to have required disclosure controls and procedures relating to Musks tweets, a charge that Tesla has agreed to settle. The settlements, which are subject to court approval, will result in comprehensive corporate governance and other reforms at Teslaincluding Musks removal as Chairman of the Tesla boardand the payment by Musk and Tesla of financial penalties.

According to the SECs complaint against him, Musk tweeted on August 7, 2018 that he could take Tesla private at $420 per share a substantial premium to its trading price at the time that funding for the transaction had been secured, and that the only remaining uncertainty was a shareholder vote. The SECs complaint alleged that, in truth, Musk knew that the potential transaction was uncertain and subject to numerous contingencies. Musk had not discussed specific deal terms, including price, with any potential financing partners, and his statements about the possible transaction lacked an adequate basis in fact. According to the SECs complaint, Musks misleading tweets caused Teslas stock price to jump by over six percent on August 7, and led to significant market disruption.

According to the SECs complaint against Tesla, despite notifying the market in 2013 that it intended to use Musks Twitter account as a means of announcing material information about Tesla and encouraging investors to review Musks tweets, Tesla had no disclosure controls or procedures in place to determine whether Musks tweets contained information required to be disclosed in Teslas SEC filings. Nor did it have sufficient processes in place to that Musks tweets were accurate or complete.

Musk and Tesla have agreed to settle the charges against them without admitting or denying the SECs allegations. Among other relief, the settlements require that:

The total package of remedies and relief announced today are specifically designed to address the misconduct at issue by strengthening Teslas corporate governance and oversight in order to protect investors, said Stephanie Avakian, Co-Director of the SECs Enforcement Division.

As a result of the settlement, Elon Musk will no longer be Chairman of Tesla, Teslas board will adopt important reforms including an obligation to oversee Musks communications with investorsand both will pay financial penalties, added Steven Peikin, Co-Director of the SECs Enforcement Division. The resolution is intended to prevent further market disruption and harm to Teslas shareholders.

The SECs investigation was conducted by Walker Newell, Brent Smyth, and Barrett Atwood and supervised by Steven Buchholz, Erin Schneider, and Jina Choi in the San Francisco Regional Office and Cheryl Crumpton in the SECs Home Office.

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SEC.gov | Elon Musk Settles SEC Fraud Charges; Tesla ...

Twitter/Screenshot by NPR

Twitter/Screenshot by NPR

The Twitter showdown between Elon Musk and the head of the World Food Programme has made headlines around the world.

In October, David Beasley, head of the U.N. food agency, tweeted a cheeky congratulations to Musk for reportedly earning $36 billion in a single day. "1/6 of your one-day increase would save 42 million lives that are knocking on famine's door," he wrote.

A few days later, Musk tweeted: "If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it."

While Beasley quickly clarified that his earlier tweet referred to feeding "people on the brink of starvation" and not solving world hunger, he invited Musk to meet "anywhere Earth or space" to discuss the potential donation.

So far, Musk has made no commitments to the agency. Still, the conversation prompts the question: How much of a dent would $6 billion make when it comes to feeding millions? After all, WFP raised $8.4 billion last year, yet the global food crisis has only worsened.

In fact, since Musk and Beasley first started their Twitter conversation, the total number of people at risk of famine has risen to 45 million, along with the cost to help them, which now stands at $7 billion, according to the WFP.

"Tens of millions of people are staring into an abyss. We've got conflict, climate change and COVID-19 driving up the numbers of the acutely hungry," said Beasley in a statement this week.

We asked experts in humanitarian aid and global hunger to give their perspective on the $6 billion debate.

Was it fair for Musk to ask the WFP to explain how it planned to spend the $6 billion?

Yes, say the specialists we spoke to. "Although some may see the exchange as frivolous, Musk is right to expect WFP to have a plan for putting the money to good use," says Ian Mitchell, a senior fellow at the think tank Center for Global Development. "International organizations should have specific plans that are clear about the outcomes they will achieve."

Researchers are confident that WFP, which received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for its work, can offer a thorough answer to Musk's query.

"What WFP does, and is good at, is dealing with food crises, emergencies and, if it ever gets that bad, famines," says Steve Wiggins, a research fellow who focuses on humanitarian policy at the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI),

Last year, WFP said it helped provide emergency relief to 115.5 million people in 84 countries. It did so with a massive delivery fleet of 5,600 trucks, 30 ships and 100 planes, owned and operated by WFP, which transports food, workers, storage supplies and other supplies needed to coordinate and execute the operation.

Its 60-year experience in delivering aid helps the agency reach some of the world's hardest-to-reach places. In a May study, Wiggins and Levine looked at what was done to help people in the biggest, most drawn out conflicts over the last three decades from the conflict in northern Uganda, which ended in 2006, to current conflict in Afghanistan.

They concluded that WFP made a difference in these situations but only up to a point. "The scary thing is that so little was done," says Levine but when there was emergency relief, it came in the form of food aid, mostly from WFP.

This assistance, wrote the authors in the paper, "probably protected recipients from unacceptable hardship."

In response to Musk's request for details, Beasley tweeted him the math: "$.43 x 42,000,000 x 365 days = $6.6 billion."

That's how much it would cost to provide one meal a day for one year to this population in need, says WFP. The agency would deliver this "meal" in the form of food aid, cash or vouchers.

The food aid, says WFP, consists of commodities such as rice, maize and high-energy biscuits.

But there's more to food aid than a plate of food.

Keep in mind, says Simon Levine of ODI, it's not entirely accurate to think of 43 cents as just the price of one meal per day per person for a year.

It's the per capita calculation that WFP has made of what it needs to pull off this operation, he adds. So, in addition to the actual food, cash or vouchers, it would likely cover the cost of what it takes to make sure the aid is going to the communities that need it the most and monitoring to make sure the money is well spent.

When you look at the figures this way, says Mitchell, it makes you realize "just how little income the world's poorest have. Half a dollar per person per day can make the difference between life and death."

Some experts want to move away from delivering short-term emergency relief altogether. "WFP says they want to feed 42 million with a meal a day for 365 days," says Lindiwe Majele Sibanda, a professor, director and chair at the African Research Universities Alliance Centre of Excellence in Food Security at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. "What about on Day 367?"

Sibanda argues handouts can make countries overly dependent on aid. Instead, she says, large donations should go toward long-term solutions that address the root causes of famine and hunger for example, teaching farmers better techniques, encouraging average folks to grow nutrient-dense crops for themselves and to sell as well and making sure countries have a stronger social safety net to meet food needs in times of crisis.

Such systemic changes will cost much more than $6 billion, or even the $8.4 billion WFP raised last year. "We've had governments [together] spending upward of $100 billion a year on extreme poverty and hunger, with everyone agreeing it's nowhere near what we need to tackle this problem," says Mitchell.

Despite the debates over the best way to help people on the brink of famine, our sources all agree that $6 billion from Musk could do a lot of good.

For one, it's a pretty impressive amount. "$6 billion would be a very significant single-year charitable contribution for an individual, certainly one of the largest ever," says Mitchell and targeting that sum to assist the world's poorest and hungriest "would likely make the biggest difference to human welfare."

Now, if other billionaires could get on the bandwagon, that would be great, says Levine. "If Jeff Bezos stumped up another $6 billion, that'd be $12 billion, and we could do twice as much."

Joanne Lu is a freelance journalist who covers global poverty and inequity. Her work has appeared in Humanosphere, The Guardian, Global Washington and War is Boring. Follow her on Twitter: @joannelu

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How $6 billion from Elon Musk could make a major dent in fighting global famine : Goats and Soda - NPR

Oh, what fun he has on social media. Photo: Patrick Pleul/picture alliance via Getty Images

Elon Musk is once again trolling on Twitter and once again, his shenanigans are affecting both his and his companys bottom line. On the latest Pivot podcast, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discuss the magnates latest strange social-media antics and what might be the motivating force behind them.

Scott Galloway: So my Twitter started blowing up last night. And our producer Lara is the one who gave me the heads-up I went on, and Elon had called me an insufferable numbskull. And I looked up numbskull because I wasnt entirely sure what it meant. It means foolish and stupid. And I think I want your opinion here. I think Im more foolish than stupid. What do you think?

Twice weekly, Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher host Pivot, a New York Magazine podcast about business, technology, and politics.

Kara Swisher: Oh, thats a hard one.

Galloway: Thats a tough one? I think its an easy one.

Swisher: Foolish, for sure.

Galloway: 100 percent.

Swisher: You have said you were stupid about Tesla stock, and Ive pointed it out several times. Like, you were wrong, not stupid.

Galloway: I didnt understand, quite frankly, what was going on. I didnt understand why he and his army of flying monkeys were coming after me.

Swisher: He gets it into his head sometimes.

Galloway:I had put out what I thought was a fairly innocuous tweet saying that a page out of the CEO big-tech playbook is they never want to take responsibility for their actions, including selling stock. And I think whats happening here is that so Elon Musk now has, I think, about $200 billion of Tesla stock. He was given so many options as part of his comp package that when they expire, hell exercise them because theyre hugely in the money.But that triggers a taxable event. The delta between the strike price and what the stock is trading at means he will probably have somewhere between a $5 and $10 billion tax liability. And what he could do easily is borrow against his holdings $10 billion at probably 0.5 percent to pay his tax bill. So he could basically borrow money for free to pay his tax bill.

But heres the thing: Some very smart people who manage his money have said to him, Look, if your stock got cut by 90 percent, Tesla would still be worth more than General Motors and Ford. So we have to model out the possibility that just as your stock has gone up ten times in the last 24 months, it could get cut by 90 percent. And if you had all of this money, and hes probably been borrowing against his money Im sorry, borrowing against the stock for a while if you have $20 billion in debt in your holdings, go from being worth $200 billion to $20 billion, this could be a really, really ugly scenario. So theyve modeled it out. And hes obviously decided and by the way, its the smart thing to do, and its his stock. Hes entitled to sell it. But instead of taking responsibility for saying I want to diversify; I need to pay some taxes, he says, Twitter, you tell me what to do.

Swisher: Yeah. Over the weekend, he put out a Twitter poll asking if he should sell 10 percent of his Tesla stock. Scott, you tweeted that hes using the Twitter results as a cloud cover to monetize Tesla at prices that he knows arent sustainable without outright telling the market hes lost faith in its valuation although he has said that somewhat. This has happened before. Ive seen it happen before many times.

Galloway: So Lara pointed out and lets just call out the elephant in the room: The sexual tension between the two of us is palpable. Its palpable, I got to be honest. Last night, I did have a sex dream about Elon. I was running my hands through his chest hair. We were in a hermetically sealed container, 30 feet below the Martian surface, recognizing that we were about to die a horrific death either from asteroids or increased radiation or gravitational pull that was melting our bones and neurons. But you know what? We had each other, Kara. We had each other.

Swisher: Im going to take over. Wait a sec. Im going to get away from the weird sex dream you had about Elon. Heres what Elon told me last month hes talking to me, though probably not now. Heres what Elon told me last month at Code regarding his Tesla stock And by the way, Im not Elons mom. He does whatever he wants, so dont blame me.

Audio of Elon Musk clip: I have a bunch of options that are expiring early next year, so Ive got a huge block of options Ill sell in Q4 because I have to or theyll expire. And my top marginal tax rate is 53 percent.

Galloway: Well, okay. But heres the problem and again, another page out of the playbook. Just in time to monetize the wealth of the wealthiest man in the world, hes decided to peace out to Texas. Hes no longer a California resident. He became a resident of Texas in October, just in time to start selling some of that $200 billion. So thats just not true. But you know what happened? I thought my Twitter was going to absolutely go crazy and the trolls were going to come for me. But he decided to take another ten milligrams of CBD. And did you see the tweet he put out to Ron Wyden?

Swisher: That was something else.

Galloway: Okay, so Senator Wyden basically said, well, something along the lines of Maybe you should just pay your taxes.

Swisher: Which is common among politicians. They do that all the time.

Galloway: And you know what? He wrote back Why does your PP look like you just came?

So heres a little bit of color on Senator Ron Wyden. His father fled Nazis. Senator Wyden was a scholar-athlete, which means he is very disciplined and in amazing shape, and he has been reelected four times to the greatest deliberative body on this planet or any other planet. So, Elon, shut the fuck up.

Swisher: Yes, that was not in good taste, I would say. But Twitter is not in good taste.

Galloway: Hes in bad taste. This is not Twitters fault.

Swisher: Nope.

Galloway: What do young people think of our connective tissue, our government, when the wealthiest man in the world starts tweeting at the head of the Senate Finance Committee, which I would argue, on a risk-adjusted basis, isnt great for shareholders, saying, Why does your PP look like you just came? America, everybody. Thats our role model.

Pivot is produced by Lara Naaman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

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The Reasoning Behind That Elon Musk Twitter Poll - New York Magazine

Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) reached a fresh all-time high in Tuesday's sessionwith several altcoins joining the party as well. An under-the-radar crypto, meanwhile, is quietly making waves and has outperformed its more illustrious peers.

Elonomics (CRYPTO: ELONOM) has gained about 1,000% over the past 24 hours to earn the distinction of being the biggest advancer among cryptocurrencies, according to CoinMarketCap.

The Elonomics coin isa rebase tokenwith an efficient rebasing mechanism. Rebasing is a mechanism by which the total supply of a token is increased or decreased across all holders. This serves to adjust the token price without affecting the value of anyone's share of coins. This adjustment is donealgorithmically.

Related Link: Best Cryptocurrencies In 2021

Last Friday, the official Twitter handle of Elonomics made an announcement, which involveddApps,a complete solution platform with Portfolio Tracker, Rug Checker, Swap and Rewards Calculator as functions.

Elonomics rewards its holders with Binance USD, which is a stable coin. The coin is styled after TeslaInc(NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk.

ELONOM Price Action: Elonomics was trading up 863.93% at $33.60 Tuesday afternoon at publication. With the rally, the fully-diluted market cap of the token was also upat $33.5million.

Image byIvn Jesus RojasfromPixabay

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This Elon Musk-Themed Crypto Is Up 1,000% Over The Past 24 Hours - Benzinga - Benzinga

These days, Im not so sure which is more outlandish: the stuff tech magnate Elon Musk does or the stuff his fans do. In recent days, it seems pretty clear that Musk and his fans have come to a digital tie in this area.

After creating a poll to let the public decide whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock and pay taxes (spoiler: the Yes votes won) on Saturday, Musk decided to change his Twitter profile name to Lorde Edge with no explanation. This is something he does every once in a while, so it wasnt too much of a surprise. What was different this time is that his fans latched on to Lorde Edge and created a memecoin on the Ethereum blockchain of the same name. And people bought it.

According to cryptocurrency price-tracking website CoinMarketCap, the Lorde Edge coin had an average $11 million trading volume, which refers to how much cryptocurrency was traded, in the last 24 hours. As of the publication of this blog, the token was worth $0.00001065.

While thats less than a penny, the fact that its even worth that much is bizarre considering its either a total waste of money or a scam.

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On the Lorde Edge website, written in a font that looks like Comic Sans, the cryptocurrency is described as is the first of its kind token celebrating the Dogefather and crypto CEO, Elon Musk! A promotional video on the groups Twitter profile says the token was created by Musk, which is not true, and promotes a seemingly nonexistent marketing strategy.

In case you were wondering, the coins logo is a Shibu Inu with green hair smoking a joint.

Directly following Elon Musks twitter name change, this token pays tribute to our one and only leader in mooning multiple projects such as DOGE and SHIB, the founders wrote, typos theirs. And of course... ELON - known as Dogelon Mars!

While Musk is known to have diehard fans, thats a lot of love and worship for a mere human being. Just saying.

Lorde Edge bills itself as a token that aims to Predict THE FUTURE of the moon mission by creating it. Considering that taking humans to the Moon is currently a matter between SpaceX, headed by Musk, and NASA, who knows what the Lorde Edge founders hope to create.

Please think long and hard before you buy any Lorde Edge, or better yet, dont buy it at all. (In case this sways you, Musk changed his Twitter name back to Elon Musk.) The internet is ripe with cryptocurrency scams lately, such as the Squid Game scam and the Mando scam (the latter of which refers to The Mandalorian). This wouldnt be anything new.

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Elon Musk Changed His Twitter Name to Lorde Edge and Inspired a New Memecoin - Gizmodo

Tesla CEO Elon Musk surprised his Twitter followers by asking them to vote on whether he should sell 10% of his company's stock. The majority said yes. Britta Pedersen/Pool/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Tesla CEO Elon Musk surprised his Twitter followers by asking them to vote on whether he should sell 10% of his company's stock. The majority said yes.

Tesla shares fell sharply on Monday after CEO Elon Musk surprised his Twitter followers with a strange proposal: He offered to sell 10% of his stock and put the decision up for a poll.

The tweet on Saturday came after a recent proposal by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., to tax investments every year for the country's billionaires. That would have marked an unprecedented step, given the U.S. only taxes stock investments when they are sold.

Musk has vocally opposed the plan and, on Saturday, appeared to double down in his tweet.

"Much has made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance, so I propose selling 10 percent of my Tesla stock," he wrote. Then, he asked his followers, "Do you support this?"

More than 3.5 million Twitter users participated in the unscientific survey, and 58% voted in favor of Musk selling those shares.

Musk said in a follow-up tweet on Saturday that he would "abide by the results, whichever way it goes."

Tax experts, however, have noted Musk would have likely had to sell a number of his shares because of how of the way some of his expiring stock options are structured. The taxes owed could be substantial, reaching more than $15 billion according to a CNBC report.

Musk has been prominent in the debate over whether wealth should be taxed, and he publicly pushed back against Wyden's plan.

Wyden had to drop his proposal given the difficulties of passing it in the narrowly divided Senate. But he has continued to argue the U.S. tax system is unfair, and that the superrich should pay a percentage of their net worth to the U.S. government every year, whether or not they sell their shares.

Wyden, the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, replied to Musk's tweet over the weekend.

"Whether or not the world's wealthiest man pays any taxes at all shouldn't depend on the results of a Twitter poll," he wrote. "It's time for the Billionaires Income Tax."

Musk responded to Wyden with crude innuendo.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has been fueding with Tesla CEO Elon Musk over the senator's proposal to tax stock investments held by billionaires annually. Drew Angerer/Getty Images hide caption

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., has been fueding with Tesla CEO Elon Musk over the senator's proposal to tax stock investments held by billionaires annually.

Musk is currently the world's richest man. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index his net worth is $338 billion, and $208 billion of that is in Tesla stock.

The company's share price has skyrocketed in recent weeks, and the company now has a market cap of more than $1 trillion.

Tesla doesn't pay Musk a salary; so, unless he sells shares, there is no income for the government to tax.

According to recent reporting by ProPublica, Musk paid no federal income taxes in 2018, and his "true tax rate" between 2014 and 2018 was 3.27%. (To determine what it is calling the "true tax rate," ProPublica says it "compared how much in taxes the 25 richest Americans paid each year to how much Forbes estimated their wealth grew in the same period.)

During a recent interview, Musk called the ProPublica reporting "misleading stuff" and "trickery."

Musk has gotten into trouble with regulators before for making comments on Twitter that have affected Tesla's stock price.

In 2018, he said he was "considering taking Tesla private at $420," a number associated with marijuana use.

The tweet led to lawsuits and eventually an agreement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that Musk would share future statements with his company's counsel in advance.

In 2020, Musk said Tesla's stock price "is too high."

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Tesla shares fall after Elon Musk's bizarre Twitter poll - NPR

Who wants electricity?Photo: Britta Pedersen/Pool (AP)

Noted tax-lover Elon Musk is the latest entrant in Texas Wild West energy market. The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla is now officially licensed to sell electricity to retail customers in the state through a company called Tesla Energy Ventures.

Musk filed paperwork to operate in the state over the summer, a move first noticed by Texas Monthly. Late last week, the state gave its blessing to Musks venture. Texass Public Utility Commission wrote in its finding that Tesla Energy Ventures is now licensed to provide retail electric services throughout the area served by ERCOT, which is basically all of Texas.

The full details of the new company are still a bit of a mystery. But the plan appears to be to target existing Tesla customers to start. Tesla sells solar panels, batteries, and cars that can act as batteries. Together, these components could essentially be a virtual power plant.

Tesla has experience on that front; the company has a virtual power plant up and running in the state of South Australia and a beta version that launched in California this summer. How fast a Texas version of thisor something else altogether with existing customers in the stateexpands is unclear. Energy firm Wood Mackenzie wrote at the time that the California virtual power plant was announced that it expects less than 5% of the states existing 50,000 Powerwall owners to participate, which it said would not have a meaningful impact on grid operations in California.

Those numbers might not move the needle in the near term, but Musk has said he sees energy being a huge part of Teslas future. I think long-term, Tesla Energy will be roughly the same size as Tesla Automotive, he told investors last year, speaking of the companys energy side thats different from the Texas venture. The energy business is collectively bigger than the automotive business. And the company could fill a unique niche in Texas.

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Usually an electricity service provider that doesnt have generation on the ground essentially acts as a middleman, they buy on the wholesale market and turn around and sell to customers, Ted Kury, director of energy studies for the Public Utility Research Centerat the University of Florida, told UtilityDive at the time of the Tesla filing. Tesla would have the ability to act as a buyer and seller simultaneously and have access to a lot of data. Regulators are going to have to think about what the implications might be.

Indeed, Musk will now be able to sell power to the people in Texas at a time when the states grid and its reliability have come under scrutiny after deadly blackouts. The main driver of those blackouts was, despite Republican claims otherwise, natural gas infrastructure freezing up and failing to meet demand. A Tesla virtual power plant could help keep the lights on. At least some Tesla customers actually did rely on their cars to keep warm.

Say what you will about the billionaire jostling his way into major markets that include cars, tunnels with cars, energy, the internet, and space ( is there anything else left?), but the Texas grid is hardly the paragon of public goods. Tire fire would be a generous descriptor after watching the grid go down in February and almost went down this summer (twice). Meanwhile, the folks that oversee Texas oil and gas that played a key role in the grids February collapse have largely evaded scrutiny or oversight. I could literally write a whole other story about how poorly run the grid is. Now, Im not saying a meme-loving billionaire will singlehandedly fix Texas energy (he wont) or that there arent better solutions out there (there are). But its not like the immediate alternative is much better.

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Elon Musk Is Officially in the Texas Electricity Business - Gizmodo

Spanning 8 million square feet, Tesla's Giga Texas factory in Austin is 23% larger than the Pentagon building. Videographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg

From a sprawling factory outsideAustin to a property-buying binge on the Gulf Coast, Musk is making an imprint in a state that has long welcomedeccentric outsiders.

By Dana Hull and Sergio Chapa

November 5, 2021, 4:35 PM UTC

On the outskirts of Austin, Texas, near the banks of the Colorado River, Tesla Inc.s new auto plant is close to completion. The massive factory, known as Giga Texas, spans 8 million square feet and sits on a roughly 1,700-acre plot.

Some 350 miles away, where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf of Mexico, SpaceX is building Starship, a rocket designed to take people to the Moon and Mars. SpaceX and its real-estate arm have bought up more than 250 nearby properties, from vacant lots and a gun range to small bungalows owned by snowbirds and retirees. Some employeesincluding Musk himselfhave been living in the houses.

Homes with Tesla Solar Roofs on Weems Street in Boca Chica Village. Photographer: Veronica G. Cardenas/Bloomberg

These colossal projects are flagships in Elon Musks growing Texas empire, which will soon include Teslas new Austin headquarters. The electric-vehicle maker is slated to leave its home base in Palo Alto, California.

Silicon Valley may be the epicenter of startup culture and venture capital. But Texas has business-friendly lawmakers, cheap and abundant land and natural resources crucial to manufacturing-heavy businesses, all of which are critical for Tesla and SpaceX. Texas also does not collect a state income tax or a capital-gains tax on individuals. Musk, the richest man in the world with a net worth of more than $340 billion, relocated his Musk Foundation from California to Texas last December.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott promoted the Gigafactory location last year with this photo of him alongside Musk. Source: Greg Abbott on Facebook

The center of the free-market economy is in Texas, said Glenn Hamer, the CEO of the Texas Association of Business. Hamer moved to Austin just nine months ago, after leading the Arizona Chamber of Commerce for 14 years. Musk is talking about launching rockets to Mars, and theres not a lot of pushback for that type of activity here. Its a clich, but in Texas there really is a sense that the skys the limit.

A self-proclaimed barbecue fan who has taken to wearing a black bandanna around his neck, South African-born Musk is just the type of swashbuckling, eccentric newcomer that Texas has long embraced. He said in December that he relocated to the state full time from Los Angeles. But he hasnt been universally welcomed, drawing criticism from some residents and environmentalists.

SpaceX rocket engines and thrusters, including the new methane-fueled Raptor engines, are tested at the 4,300-acre facility in McGregor, Texas. Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg

Musk has had a toehold in Texas for almost two decades. In 2003, SpaceX bought land in McGregor, Texas, because it needed vast space to regularly test rocket engines.

These days, the path to Mars goes through McGregor: all rocket engines and thrusters, including the new methane-fueled Raptor engines, are tested there. Nearly 600 people work at the now 4,300-acre McGregor facility, which is located around 100 miles southwest of Dallas, and a Raptor production plant will add another 400 to the local workforce.

Musks companies span multiple industries that have deep or growing roots in the state. The auto sector increasingly sees Texas as the Detroit of the South, while NASAs Johnson Space Center in Houston was founded six decades ago.

Musk is not building his presence quietly. He wants to rebrand the community surrounding SpaceXs Boca Chica launch site Starbase; signs bearing the name are already visible on company-owned property. Tesla recently opened a splashy 30,000-square-foot showroom and service center in Austin, adding to its presence in the state capital. Ad Astrathe private school that Musk foundedis now registered in Texas, and the billionaire has joked about making a foray into higher education with a science and technology institute, perhaps signaling budding interest in the idea.

Tesla's new 30,000-square-foot showroom and service center in Austin is the company's third in the state capital. Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg

All of his businessesincluding the Boring Company, his underground tunneling venture, and Neuralink, the machine-brain interface companyare hiring in Texas. SpaceX is seeking a Spaceport Mixologist to handcraft cocktails. Neuralink needs an animal care specialist and a licensed veterinary technician. Teslas new factory, which will make the Model Y and the forthcoming Cybertruck, needs scores of production associates and engineers. Musk has said Tesla will hire about 10,000 workers for Giga Texas through 2022.

Musks companies have become a beacon of the local economy. The nose of a SpaceX rocket will be displayed at the new terminal of the Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport, welcoming tourists to the southern tip of the Texas Space Coast. Musk has no shortage of detractors in the border town, but others have made him a mascot. One downtown Brownsville business has been painted with a mural featuring Musks image and the words Boca Chica to Mars.

Murals, business advertisements, and graffiti around Brownsville show an embrace of Elon Musk and SpaceX by segments of the community. Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg (2); Sergio Chapa (2)

Republican-led Texas, now home to nearly 30 million people, is gaining two additional Congressional seats as a result of the latest census, more than any other state. Its growing political clout can be seen in everything from new laws banning abortion and restricting voting rights to the states decision to sue the Biden administration over a vaccine mandate. The red-hot politics havent stopped the flood of transplants from Los Angeles, Silicon Valley, Florida and elsewhere.

It is not a coincidence that Musk has gravitated to the epicenter of the American energy economy. Manufacturing cars and trucks requires a lot of electricity and natural gas, and launching rockets depends on a steady supply of fuel. Tesla has a solar division and sells batteries to homeowners and leading utilities, while SpaceX is getting into the natural gas game.

A Tesla subsidiary registered as Gambit Energy Storage LLC has built a 100-megawatt battery energy storage project in Angleton, Texas, a town roughly 40 miles south of Houston. Utility-scale batteries are needed to store the electricity produced by wind and solar, but they can also become lucrative opportunities. By storing excess electricity when prices and demand are low, battery owners can sell it back to the grid when prices are high.

A Tesla subsidiary registered as Gambit Energy Storage LLC has quietly been constructing a more than 100 megawatt energy storage project roughly 40 miles south of Houston. Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg

Meanwhile, liquified natural gas, or LNG, is of strategic importance for Musk because it is an affordable rocket fuel. Delivery trucks belonging to Houston-based LNG company Stabilis Solutions have been seen at Starbase. SpaceX plans to build a gas-treatment plant, a power plant, a small-scale LNG plant and related storage tanks in Boca Chica, a draft environmental assessment from the Federal Aviation Administration shows. Musk is a big fan of vertical integration, and SpaceX formed its own drilling company, Lone Star Mineral Development LLC, in August 2020. The company has yet to drill any wells or produce any natural gas.

Musks dizzying array of activities in the Lone Star State are not without controversy. Austin is already being convulsed by gentrification, and Teslas new factory, on the citys East Side, will likely exacerbate the housing crunch. SpaceXs expansion plans require FAA approval but are already making neighbors uneasy. Property taxes are going up, and public beaches are regularly closed for SpaceX launches.

Environmentalists and scientists have also sounded alarms about the potential impact of SpaceXs activities. Biologists are fearful that rocket debris is damaging fragile ecosystems and disturbing nesting for the threatened piping plover, a small species of shorebird. In a public comment filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, one biologist suggested that rocket launches could deafen birds, making them easier targets for predators.

In Brownsville, public beaches are regularly closed for SpaceX launches. Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg

Environmentalists have sounded the alarms about the potential impact of SpaceXs activities on delicate animal ecosystems. Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg

A coalition of 11 environmental groups signed a Nov. 1 public letter asking the FAA to scrutinize SpaceXs proposed expansion in the area. The groups warn that the SpaceX launch site is adjacent to an ecologically unique region that includes a national wildlife refuge, tidal flats for several bird species and beaches that are used by nesting sea turtles. Sea turtles and hatchlings present near the site at the time of engine ignition could be injured or killed by the rocket heat plume, reads the letter.

The relocation of Teslas headquarters to Texas is not unexpected: Musk expressed enormous frustration with California public-health officials during the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, blasting shutdown orders as fascist on a Tesla earnings call.

Musk wants to rebrand the community surrounding SpaceXs Boca Chica launch site Starbase, and signs are already visible on company-owned property. Photographer: Mark Felix/Bloomberg

But the decision hints that Musk is just getting started. Ray Perryman, an economist in Waco, Texas, notes that Musks impact goes well beyond his companys own employees. Manufacturing operationswhether for cars or rocketsoften draw suppliers to the region and, in turn, more people. Perryman expects the creation of about 50,000 jobsand more than $3.6 billion in annual gross state product.

Texas has had its share of characters over the years, and many have been larger-than-life, wealthy risk-takers who came from elsewhere, said Perryman. Theres still a wildcatting mentality here, and theres still a mystique about Texas that Elon Musk fits well.

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Elon Musk's Texas Empire Expands to Include Austin Gigafactory, Starbase - Bloomberg

After being name-dropped by a UN official who said that just small percentage of a fortune like Elon Musk's $300 billion could help solve world hunger, the Tesla CEO tweeted his own challenge: Explain how $6 billion will fix the problem, and he'll sell Tesla stock "right now."

On Oct. 26, David Beasley, the director of the UN's World Food Programmetold CNNthat it was time for the ultra-wealthy to "step up now, on a one-time basis."

"Six billion dollars to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don't reach them. It's not complicated,"he said, specifically mentioning Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, thetwo richest men in the world.

On Sunday, Musk tweeted, "If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now," he said about Beasley's assertion.

In a follow-up tweet, Musk added that the UN's plan must include "open source accounting, so the public sees precisely how the money is spent."

Beasleyresponded to Musk's tweeta few hours later, offering to "be on the next flight to you" and saying that the executive can "throw me out if you don't like what you hear."

Beasleyalso said that while the $6 billion figure wouldn't solve world hunger, it "WILL prevent global political instability, mass migration and save 42 million people on the brink of starvation." (CNN had erroneously reported that the money would "solve" world hunger, but later corrected its headline to say 2% of Musk's fortune could "help solve" world hunger.)

Musk replied by asking Beasley to publicly publish the organization's current and proposed spending in detail. "Sunlight is a wonderful thing," Musk wrote.

In a separate tweet, Musk shared a link to a 2015 Express report alleging that UN peacekeepers were sexually abusing children in the Central African Republic in 2014, adding the comment "What happened here?"

It is unclear whether Musk was serious about his offer, and a representative for Tesla did not immediately respond to CNBC Make It's request for comment.

Six billion dollars worth of Tesla shares would be larger than any known charitable donation Musk has ever made. Earlier this year, Musk pledged to give away $150 million, including a$100 million prizein a carbon removal contest.

But Muskhas been criticizedfor not giving away more of his massive fortune, though he has also said heprefers to remain anonymouswhen giving away money.

This story has been updated to clarify the context surrounding Musk's tweets.

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Elon Musk tweets he is willing to spend $6 billion to fight world hungeron one condition - CNBC