Elon Musk moving from California to Texas

Yahoo Finance's Melody Hahm joins Kristin Myers to discuss what Elon Musk's move to Texas means for Silicon Valley.

Video Transcript

KRISTIN MYERS: I want to talk now about Elon Musk. He's decided to leave California to Texas. We have Yahoo Finance's Melody Hahm here with all of the updates in that story. Hey, Melody.

MELODY HAHM: Hey, Kristin. Yes, of course, this was the splashiest news this week. Of course, Musk is the second richest person in the world. And this is a pretty big move. If you would recall, he did tease this sort of exodus from Los Angeles to Texas over the last couple of months. But it seems like it is a permanent move, according to an interview he did with "The Wall Street Journal."

I do want to point out-- and he mentioned it himself, right-- Tesla and SpaceX have a very big presence in California still. That is not going to change. But for him, personally, and perhaps some of his executive suite, the COVID pandemic has really proven that you can basically set up shop anywhere.

I've spent the day actually speaking to a bunch of entrepreneurs, one based in Denver, Colorado, another based in Dallas, Texas, about this so-called demise of Silicon Valley as we have been covering it over the course of the last couple of months. And they even say themselves that that narrative is greatly exaggerated. That there will always be an incubator hub that remains in Silicon Valley, and to some extent, in Silicon Beach, which is the Los Angeles area. But this sort of beta test that COVID has provided for a lot of entrepreneurs has proven to be true, right? That this can be the new normal, even post-pandemic.

One of the folks that I spoke with runs a fintech company in Dallas. And he said he's close friends with Mark Cuban, who really had the foresight early on to say, hey, it's not worthwhile to be paying ridiculous state income taxes, as well as a lot of the regulation hurdles that Californians face. And so he's saying that this could be a great bellwether. And Musk may be one of the most high profile names. But this drumbeat will only get louder, we anticipate, in the years to come.

KRISTIN MYERS: All right. Thanks so much, Melody Hahm, with all of the updates on that story.