Just days after we learned that Xitter is trying to sublease its entire mid-Market headquarters, Elon Musk says he’s moving the company to Texas, and claims it’s because of a new California law about the rights of trans kids.

We hate to post two Elon Musk articles on the same day, but this one might be big news. (Or it might be no news whatsoever, and just Musk making tantrum threats on which he does not follow through.) But last week when the news broke that Twitter/X was subleasing its entire 800,000 square-foot headquarters at Ninth and Market streets, it was fair to speculate the company may have been relocating out of San Francisco.

Well, on Tuesday afternoon, Musk proclaimed on Xitter that he was moving the company's headquarters to Austin, Texas per the SF Business Times. His rationale is completely non-financial, but instead because Musk says he’s mad about a new trans rights law that California Governor Gavin Newsom just signed.

We should note that this has all just been Xitter shit-talking so far, and there are no actual announcements the likes of which a professionally run company, with employees whose lives are effected, might make. It started, as seen above, when tech investor and devoted Musk lickspittle Jason Calacanis retweeted an incendiary Libs of TikTok post complaining about a law that Newsom signed saying that schools should not be required to notify parents if a student asked to use a different name or pronoun that what appears on their birth certificate. And the law bans districts from enacting policies that would require such notification.

“A lot of families and companies will move out of California because of this law,” Musk tweeted in response. “Who would want to risk the state taking away their kids?”

There is absolutely nothing in the law about taking kids away from parents. Musk has a 20-year-old trans daughter from whom he is estranged, and has had a massive hang-up about trans issues for several years.

So a couple hours after Calacanis’s original tweet, Musk then posted the grand declaration that “This is 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.” (Hawthorne is a city in southwest Los Angeles County.)

And then about 20 minutes later, he posted “And 𝕏 HQ will move to Austin.” using his beloved 'X' logo in reference to the company formerly known (and still called by some) Twitter.

Does Musk actually plan to follow through on this? Or is it just another empty threat like that $100,000 donation to defeat Supervisor Dean Preston that Musk claimed he was going to make, but never actually made?

After all, consider that this announcement comes on the same day we learn that Musk’s other company Tesla is hiring hundreds of new employees in the Bay Area, according to the Chronicle’s reporting.

The Chronicle’s own coverage of Musk supposedly moving Twitter HQ has some inside sources saying Twitter is presently planning to keep about 220,000 square feet of its 800,000 square-foot headquarters at 1355 Market Street. Of course, that information came in before Musk’s Tuesday tirade. But the company has laid off about 6,000 employees since Musk bought it for $44 billion in late 2022, according to the Business Times, and has around 1,500 employees remaining.

So it’s something of a skeleton crew around Twitter lately anyway. But again, we’ll see if Musk actually follows through on any of this, or just forgets about it and moves on to his next attention-seeking controversy. Maybe he'll be a surprise speaker at the RNC?

Related: Elon Musk’s Twitter/X Now Looking to Sublease Entire Market Street Headquarters [SFist]

Image: SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - JULY 24: A worker removes letters from the Twitter sign that is posted on the exterior of Twitter headquarters on July 24, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Workers began removing the letters from the sign outside Twitter headquarters less than 24 hours after CEO Elon Musk officially rebranded Twitter as "X" and has changed its iconic bird logo, the biggest change he has made since taking over the social media platform. San Francisco police halted the sign removal shortly after it began. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)