Elon Musk said months ago he moved to Texas, although he's never said which city. Meanwhile, Tesla Inc.'s chief financial officer and "master of coin," Zachary Kirkhorn, is now calling Austin home, Bloomberg reported.
And, as you might suspect, his pad is in a prime location overlooking Lake Austin. With Tesla's entry into crypto payments, it should be interesting to see where Kirkhorn takes the massive carmaker. And having the company's CFO in town may fuel more speculation that Austin will become Tesla's HQ.
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Tesla is, of course, building a $1.1 billion electric car factory in eastern Travis County, where Musk said more than 10,000 people are needed through 2022. Other Musk businesses are also setting up shop in the area, from SpaceX to The Boring Company.
Austin has always been a popular destination for tech workers relocating from the coasts, but the trend has accelerated during the pandemic. Austin ranked No. 3 in the country on a recent Zillow list looking at metros with the most net inbound movers in the first 11 months of 2020.
It's not like all of the newcomers are from California. In fact, historically, most of the people moving to Austin come from other places in Texas. But there has definitely been a significant surge in relocations from out of state in recent months. Realtor Matt Holm told Bloomberg relocations now make up about 45% to 50% of his business, up from 10% to 15%.
The Bloomberg story also notes that another transportation tech leader is now in town. John Krafcik, who just stepped down as CEO of Alphabet's self-driving car company Waymo, apparently bought new digs in Barton Hills last year. As you might recall, Waymo closed down its Austin operations in 2019 after years of testing cars here.
And, for the record, the ABJ doesn't have confirmation that Musk has chosen Austin as his personal home base but Forbes recent pegged it as his primary place of residence in its latest list of billionaires — which included 10 Austinites.
Will Anderson with Austin Business Journal contributed reporting.
