Elon Musk has announced that both X aka Twitter and SpaceX will be moving their headquarters from California to Texas. Strangely, the decision was prompted by the billionaire’s apparent belief that teachers should be made to forcibly out LGBTQ kids.
Musk revealed the news on Tuesday across several posts on X, reacting to a new Californian law passed earlier this week. The new law bans Californian school districts from mandating that teachers tell parents if their child’s sexual orientation or gender identity has changed, becoming the first U.S. state to do so.
To be clear, Assembly Bill No. 1955 doesn’t actually prohibit teachers from relaying such information to caregivers. It merely means that school districts can’t implement a blanket requirement that they must. Yet Musk took objection to this, calling California’s new law “the final straw.”
“Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas,” Musk wrote. “And X HQ will move to Austin.”
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California’s new law aims to protect LGBTQ children
There are numerous reasons why a child might not want their caregivers to know their sexuality or gender identity. While some parents will love and support their child regardless of how they identify, many others have demonstrated otherwise. A 2019 study found that less than half of parents had positive responses to learning that their child was transgender. A 2009 study found that LGBTQ children who are rejected by their families are nearly six times more likely to report high levels of depression, as well as over eight times more likely to attempt suicide.
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Informing parents that their child is LGBTQ risks significant harm to said child, carrying the danger of abuse, rejection, and the removal of their support system.
“Studies confirm that LGBTQ+ youth thrive when they have parental support and feel safe sharing their full identities with them, but it can be harmful to force young people to share their full identities before they are ready,” Assembly Bill No. 1955 reads. “Policies that forcibly ‘out’ pupils without their consent remove opportunities for LGBTQ+ young people and their families to build trust and have these conversations when they are ready.”
Even so, it seems as though Musk considers outing children against their will preferable to allowing them to go to their parents in their own time. The billionaire characterised the law as a “massive destruction of parental rights,” accusing it of “putting children at risk for permanent damage.“`
At least one Texas school district requires teachers to inform parents if their child is transgender after it established a new policy in August last year. Twenty-three students in the Katy Independent School District were subsequently outed to their parents by early December, while at least one transgender student to drop out of school. The Katy Independent School District is now under investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, as its policy is accused of discriminating against students on the basis of sex.
Musk’s objection to laws regarding LGBTQ children isn’t the only reason he’s keen to exit California, though. He also claimed that the state allows crime to “run rampant,” and that he’s “had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building.”
The billionaire has further expressed a preference for situating companies in Texas. Musk previously ran a poll asking whether he should transfer Tesla’s state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas, prompted by a Delaware court’s January decision to throw out his $55.8 billion Tesla compensation package. Tesla subsequently filed to make the change in February, with Musk having already moved its physical headquarters from California to Texas in 2021.
Musk’s sizable Tesla compensation package was eventually restored in June following a shareholder vote on reapproval.
