Recent activity on Elon Musk’s Twitter has led some to ask: Is Tesla bringing its next Gigafactory to Austin, Texas?
Musk, the company’s CEO and founder, tweeted a poll with a single question on Tuesday — “Giga Texas?” — to which 80 percent of the more than 260,000 respondents said “Hell yea.”
While it’s not exactly set it stone, the poll, coupled with Musk temporarily setting his Twitter bio location to Austin and tweeting “We are (obviously) also looking for world-class chip designers to join our team, based in both Palo Alto & Austin” earlier this month does raise some questions.
Musk added more fuel to the Austin rumors this week as he was in Texas for a career day at SpaceX’s launch facility in Boca Rica. The company is working from that site on a super-sized spaceship that can go to the moon, Mars and beyond, with a 12-mile-high test flight scheduled for later this year. While a Tesla Gigafactory represents a much larger investment than a SpaceX rocket launching site, the timing of all of this does imply that Musk is interested in building more of a presence in Texas.
On the other hand, Musk also deleted Austin from his Twitter’s location settings, used the platform to promote his new EDM song “Don’t Doubt ur Vibe” on Soundcloud and tweeted “What if there was an AI programmed to want to pick as many strawberries as possible, and so it cultivated nothing but strawberries on all of Earth’s land? Then it would be Strawberry Fields Forever!” this week. So who knows?
One thing is certain though: Tesla has had a strong start to the year. On Monday, the company shared that its stock soared 20 percent to an all-time high of more than $900 a share. Could an Austin Gigafactory become REALiTi? Only time will tell.
The company currently operates three Gigafactories including two in the United States — located in Buffalo, New York, and Storey County, Nevada — plus one in Shanghai. A fourth, near Berlin, is currently under construction.
