Elon Musk refused to directly comment on his stance on the Texas Abortion Law. Earlier on the same day, Governor Greg Abbott of Texas had said that the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX had supported Texas “social policies.”
On Thursday, Governor Abbott appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” He said that his state was appealing to businesses and individuals. He said that the new law (that prevents abortion after six weeks and that allows the public to enforce the ban) and other politically divisive social issue laws did not affect business in the state.
He added that there were a lot of businesses and Americans who liked the social positions that were taken by the state of Texas. He said that these positions were accelerating the process of businesses that were coming to the state instead of slowing down the process.
He mentioned that Elon Musk had to leave California partly due to the state’s social policies and that “Elon consistently” told him that he liked the state’s “social policies.”
Later on, Thursday, Elon Musk told CNBC in a tweet that in general he believed that government should rarely impose its will on people and when it did so, it should aim to “maximize their cumulative happiness.” He also said that he would like to stay out of politics.
Elon Musk had moved to Texas last year. He left California as he wanted to save billions of dollars in taxes. He has been expanding his operations in Texas. SpaceX operations in the state have been functioning from 2003. Currently, he is also expanding Tesla operations in the state.
He is building a second Tesla plant in the U.S., outside of Austin. According to his announcement in March, the new plant in Texas will hire more than 10,000 people through the following year.
Although Tesla’s headquarters remain in Palo Alto, California and Tesla’s first U.S. car assembly is in Fremont, in the past, he had threatened to leave the Golden State and move all operations to Texas.
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