X.com formerly know as twitter, the social media company owned by Elon Musk, plans to shut its San Francisco office “over the next few weeks,” according to an internal email sent by the company’s chief executive.
In the email, which X’s chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, sent to employees on Monday, the company said workers would move to existing offices in San Jose, California. X will also open an engineering-focused office in Palo Alto, California, which it will share with xAI, the artificial intelligence outfit owned by Mr. Musk, the email said.
“This is an important decision that impacts many of you, but it is the right one for our company in the long term,” Ms. Yaccarino wrote to employees.
Mr. Musk said last month that he would move the company’s headquarters to Texas, after California passed a law that bans school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents if their children change their gender identification. Mr. Musk, who has had a tempestuous relationship with the state, said that such legislation would “force families and companies to leave California to protect their children.”
X, previously known as Twitter, was founded in San Francisco in 2006. It moved its headquarters to the city’s Mid-Market neighborhood in 2012 after striking a deal with local legislators for a payroll tax break. Twitter became a symbol of the city’s tech industry, as companies like Uber also moved into the neighborhood.
Musk has long maintained a contentious relationship with the state where he founded his companies, stating in 2022 it was the land of “taxes, overregulation and litigation”. In 2020, Musk relocated the headquarters of his electric car company, Tesla, from California to Texas in response to California’s coronavirus measures, which he called “fascist”.
X’s departure from San Francisco represents a symbolic blow to the city, where there has been an exodus of tech companies from its once busy downtown area. Since 2019, the 20 largest tech companies have slashed the amount of office space rented in downtown San Francisco in half – including Meta, Salesforce, Snap, Lyft, Block, Airbnb and PayPal. As X vacates its 74,322 sq metre (800,000 sq ft) headquarters, 46% of offices and 40% of retail spaces in the area are vacant.
