Taking advantage of Musk's plan to relocate SpaceX headquarters, space startups are seizing the opportunity

Some startups in the space industry are seizing the opportunity of Musk relocating SpaceX headquarters to compete for talent, as some SpaceX employees are disappointed with Musk's relocation plan.

On the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, the asteroid mining company Astroforge Inc. replied to Musk's announcement of the relocation plan, stating that their company is hiring and is headquartered in Seal Beach, California, about 25 miles from SpaceX's current headquarters in Hawthorne, California.

Stanislas Maximin, CEO of the French aerospace company Latitude, publicly reached out to SpaceX employees. He replied to Musk's post mentioned above, saying:

If SpaceX employees do not align with these values and wish to join a welcoming and ambitious rocket company, his company is open to them. The company is located in a livable city near Paris. "We take care of everything for you: moving out, visas, full healthcare, your house/apartment, finding a job for your spouse... Some have already taken this step, join them."

After this reply, Maximin posted again, stating that he personally will provide 12 bottles of champagne for each engineer leaving SpaceX.

The trigger for these startups to speak out was a post Musk made on X on Tuesday, July 16th, Eastern Time. Due to dissatisfaction with a new law in California regarding transgender children in public schools, Musk decided to move both X and SpaceX headquarters out of California. The law aims to prevent schools from disclosing students' sexual orientation or gender identity to parents without the students' consent.

Musk likened the new law to the last straw that broke the camel's back, stating that because of this law and many other laws previously enacted that have impacted families and businesses, SpaceX will now move its headquarters from Hawthorne, California to Starbase in Texas.

Previously, Musk changed the registered locations of several of his companies due to dissatisfaction with a judge ruling his compensation plan as Tesla CEO invalid. In June of this year, he decided to move Tesla's registered location from Delaware to Texas. As of now, Musk has decided to relocate the headquarters of three of his companies to Texas.

Currently, thousands of SpaceX employees at the headquarters near Los Angeles, California are building SpaceX's main Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon spacecraft, and some Starlink satellites. Over the past few years, SpaceX has built a major office facility called Starbase in southern Texas, located in Boca Chica, which is the primary site for SpaceX to build and launch its large interstellar spacecraft rocket system According to Elon Musk's plan, Tesla's headquarters will move from San Francisco, California to the capital of Texas, Austin.

It is currently unclear how the jobs or facilities of the two companies in California will be transferred to Texas. Last week, Tesla just rented out several floors of its headquarters building, and the media predicts that Tesla will still retain some space for employee use.

The media reported that Musk has had a love-hate relationship with California for a long time. He is frustrated with California's excessive intervention. He has also criticized the state for being slow in innovation and delaying construction projects through excessive regulation. However, he has been hesitant to completely abandon California because he wants to continue leveraging Silicon Valley and its technical talent for artificial intelligence and engineering work.

The office of the Governor of California responded to Musk's announcement of the relocation plan on Tuesday, stating that despite the headquarters moving to Texas in 2021, Tesla will eventually expand in California and relocate the company's global engineering and artificial intelligence (AI) headquarters to California