SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California

Elon Musk vows to move X, SpaceX headquarters from California to Texas 

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SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California

Image Credits: Alisha Jucevic/Bloomberg / Getty Images

Elon Musk is doubling down on his commitment to Texas by vowing to move SpaceX’s massive headquarters from its long-time Hawthorne, California home to the Lone Star State. 

Musk later said that he would move the headquarters of his social media platform X from San Francisco, California, to Austin, Texas — where his other company, Tesla, is headquartered. SpaceX will be headquartered in Starbase, where the company operates a massive Starship manufacturing and testing site. 

“Have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building,” he posted on X. Regarding the SpaceX move, Musk said “the final straw” was the passage of a California bill signed this week by Governor Gavin Newsom that prohibits schools from creating or enforcing policies that would require employees to disclose students’ sexuality or gender identity to anyone without their consent — like parents. Musk said this law, “and the many others that precede it,” attack “both families and companies.” 

Musk’s declaration has precedent. Tesla announced it would move its headquarters from California to Austin, Texas back in 2021 — although the automaker still has a sizable footprint in the Golden state, including its assembly plant in Fremont.

Musk has already tied his companies to the Lone Star State in other ways, too: SpaceX officially changed its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas in February, a move that was a response to a ruling from a Delaware judge over Musk’s $56 billion compensation package for his role as chief executive at Tesla. The same month, Musk also moved his brain implant company from Delaware to Nevada. Last month, Tesla shareholders voted not only to re-approve the massive pay package but also to reincorporate the company from Delaware to Texas. 

SpaceX moved into former Northrop Corporation plant in 2007, a complex that has grown to more than 1 million square feet. Southern California has historically been a major aerospace hub, and that identity is true today, with companies ranging from massive primes like Boeing to dozens of startups finding their home in Los Angeles County.

X, which was formerly Twitter, has had its headquarters in San Francisco after being founded there in 2006. 

The larger ramifications of the proposed move for both companies are unclear. For SpaceX, Hawthorne is not just its headquarters but also home to large production facilities for its Falcon rocket and Dragon spacecraft, as well as mission control. But if SpaceX and X follow the path of Tesla, it’s likely that much of the status quo will remain the same. 

Regardless, Texas Governor Greg Abbott applauded Musk’s statement, saying that it cements his state’s status as “the leader in space exploration.” 

Tumblr to move its half a billion blogs to WordPress

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Image Credits: Automattic

Tumblr is making the move to WordPress. After its 2019 acquisition by WordPress.com parent company Automattic in a $3 million fire sale, the new owner has focused on improving Tumblr’s platform and growing its revenue. Now Automattic will shift Tumblr’s back end over to WordPress, Automattic said in a blog post published on Wednesday.

The company clarified that it will not change Tumblr into WordPress; it will just run on WordPress.

“We acquired Tumblr to benefit from its differences and strengths, not to water it down. We love Tumblr’s streamlined posting experience and its current product direction,” the post explained. “We’re not changing that. We’re talking about running Tumblr’s backend on WordPress. You won’t even notice a difference from the outside,” it noted.

Automattic says the move to WordPress will have its advantages, as it will make it easier to share the company’s work across the two platforms. That is, Automattic’s team will be able to build tools and features that work on both services, while Tumblr will be able to take advantage of the open source developments that take place on WordPress.org.

In addition, WordPress will be able to benefit from the “tools and creativity” that are invested into Tumblr.

Still, the move will be a technical challenge, given that Tumblr today hosts half a billion blogs.

“We’re talking about one of the largest technical migrations in internet history. Some people think it’s impossible. But we say, ‘challenge accepted,’” the company’s announcement boasted.

It’s worth pointing out that other companies have also made significant changes to their back end over the years, which were also arguably difficult. Among those in the social space, Twitter rewrote parts of its back end and underlying architecture while keeping the site functional in its earlier years. Slack also transitioned its app’s architecture to new code several years ago. Long before that, Myspace famously shifted its architecture over to Microsoft’s stack, potentially aiding in its demise.

Automattic didn’t offer any sort of timeframe as to how long it would take to complete such a project, nor did it share its roadmap. Instead, the post only served to announce its intentions to transition Tumblr to a WordPress back end at some point in the future.

A longtime popular place to socialize, blog, participate in fandoms, and more, Tumblr originally exited to Yahoo (also TechCrunch’s parent) for north of $1 billion under then-CEO Marissa Mayer’s leadership in 2013. The hope at the time was to transform Tumblr into another social media powerhouse and to grow its ads business. However, the subsequent years were rough on Tumblr, as sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit dominated the space.

Even after Automattic acquired it, the site continued to lose money at a rate of $30 million each year, the company’s CEO Matt Mullenweg had said. Though the company benefited slightly from a Twitter exodus after the sale of the social network to new owner Elon Musk (who has since renamed it X), those new users didn’t translate to a significant increase in revenue.

Today, Tumblr makes money through a combination of digital goods, ads, and subscriptions.

Given the blogging site’s continued financial woes, Mullenweg shifted the majority of Tumblr’s workforce to other areas at Automattic late last year and laid off others. At the time, he suggested that moving Tumblr to WordPress would be “tricky” but added that new technology like AI would make it easier.

Fintech shutdowns, Klarna’s move into banking and which companies are hiring

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Office with empty chair with 'Hiring' sign hanging on it.

Image Credits: Abscent84 / Getty Images

Welcome to TechCrunch Fintech! This week, we’re looking at the respective demise of Tally and Score, plus examining Klarna’s latest business move. We also have a list of fintech companies that are looking to add headcount.

To get a roundup of TechCrunch’s biggest and most important fintech stories delivered to your inbox every Tuesday at 8:00 a.m. PT, subscribe here.

The big story

Last week, I reported on Tally, a 9-year-old fintech that helped consumers manage and pay off their credit card debt, closing its doors after an unsuccessful attempt at securing more capital. After raising $172 million from investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, the news came as a bit of a shock to the fintech community. We don’t really know what exactly led to Tally’s demise, although some speculate it was in part due to high interest rates, but it’s sad news no matter what the cause. CEO and co-founder Jason Brown told me: “This decision was incredibly difficult, but I’m proud of what Tally accomplished over the years. … While Tally’s journey is ending, the drive to help people manage their debt more effectively continues, and I’m hopeful that others will build on what we started.”

Also last week, Dominic-Madori Davis reported that Score, the dating app for people with good to excellent credit, had shut down in early August. Generally, startup shutdowns are way up this year, according to multiple sources, including Carta and Layoffs.fyi.

Analysis of the week

Swedish fintech giant Klarna announced last week that it was expanding into banking. The company started out as a buy now, pay later provider and has gradually broadened its offerings over the years. Klarna is now offering a new “balance” account and the ability to earn cash back on purchases made through its app. While U.S. users can’t yet earn interest on any money they store in the account, European users can earn up to 3.58%. The move puts Klarna closer to being in competition with other fintechs, such as Revolut, as well as incumbents such as Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase. It comes just a few months after it launched a credit card in the U.S.

Dollars and cents

As predicted, Revolut confirmed a new valuation of $45 billion via a secondary market share sale, making it one of Europe’s most valuable private tech companies.

PayZen, which aims to make healthcare more affordable by enabling patients to pay their bills in interest and fee-free installments over time, closed a $32 million Series B led by NEA.

TipRanks, which uses AI and other analytics to build datasets and other insights to help people make smarter bids on stocks, is getting snapped up for $200 million by Prytek, a developer of business process products for financial services, human resources and other enterprise verticals.

What else we’re writing

I recently put out a call asking for fintech companies that are hiring. After just over an hour, I had received more than a dozen responses. After just a few days, I heard from dozens more. The sheer number — and quality — of responses was surprising even to me, someone who writes about this space on a regular basis. We do plan to update the hiring post regularly over time so keep checking back! 

Facing increasing pressure from regulators, Apple on August 14 announced it’s opening up NFC transactions to third-party developers. NFC, or near field communication, is the short-range wireless technology that powers Apple Pay and Wallet. The tech giant also said it generated a record $24.2 billion in revenue from its services unit, which includes payments, in the second quarter.

High-interest headlines

Citi and Wells Fargo join $31 million funding round for loan startup Setpoint 

Tencent-backed Airwallex hits $500 million annualized sales, aims to get IPO-ready by 2026

Sling Money raises $15 million for money transfer app

Banking tech startup Amount raises $30 million

Podcast listens

Tune in to the Equity podcast as the crew dissects the respective shutdowns of Tally and Score here.

What is the right way to build a software business? Many startup advisers say that B2B software should solve one pain point, gain customers, then add features as their company grows. Serial founder Parker Conrad, currently the founder and CEO of Rippling, an HR software/payroll startup valued at $13.5 billion in April, thinks that’s the wrong way to do it. Conrad said on a recent episode of TechCrunch’s Found podcast that he thinks the advice given to software founders over the last two decades has been misguided.

Want to reach out with a tip? Email me at [email protected] or send me a message on Signal at 408.204.3036. You can also send a note to the whole TechCrunch crew at [email protected]. For more secure communications, click here to contact us, which includes SecureDrop (instructions here) and links to encrypted messaging apps.

Elon Musk vows to move X, SpaceX headquarters from California to Texas 

by with No Comment Tech

SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California

Image Credits: Alisha Jucevic/Bloomberg / Getty Images

Elon Musk is doubling down on his commitment to Texas by vowing to move SpaceX’s massive headquarters from its long-time Hawthorne, California home to the Lone Star State. 

Musk later said that he would move the headquarters of his social media platform X from San Francisco, California, to Austin, Texas — where his other company, Tesla, is headquartered. SpaceX will be headquartered in Starbase, where the company operates a massive Starship manufacturing and testing site. 

“Have had enough of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building,” he posted on X. Regarding the SpaceX move, Musk said “the final straw” was the passage of a California bill signed this week by Governor Gavin Newsom that prohibits schools from creating or enforcing policies that would require employees to disclose students’ sexuality or gender identity to anyone without their consent — like parents. Musk said this law, “and the many others that precede it,” attack “both families and companies.” 

Musk’s declaration has precedent. Tesla announced it would move its headquarters from California to Austin, Texas back in 2021 — although the automaker still has a sizable footprint in the Golden state, including its assembly plant in Fremont.

Musk has already tied his companies to the Lone Star State in other ways, too: SpaceX officially changed its state of incorporation from Delaware to Texas in February, a move that was a response to a ruling from a Delaware judge over Musk’s $56 billion compensation package for his role as chief executive at Tesla. The same month, Musk also moved his brain implant company from Delaware to Nevada. Last month, Tesla shareholders voted not only to re-approve the massive pay package but also to reincorporate the company from Delaware to Texas. 

SpaceX moved into former Northrop Corporation plant in 2007, a complex that has grown to more than 1 million square feet. Southern California has historically been a major aerospace hub, and that identity is true today, with companies ranging from massive primes like Boeing to dozens of startups finding their home in Los Angeles County.

X, which was formerly Twitter, has had its headquarters in San Francisco after being founded there in 2006. 

The larger ramifications of the proposed move for both companies are unclear. For SpaceX, Hawthorne is not just its headquarters but also home to large production facilities for its Falcon rocket and Dragon spacecraft, as well as mission control. But if SpaceX and X follow the path of Tesla, it’s likely that much of the status quo will remain the same. 

Regardless, Texas Governor Greg Abbott applauded Musk’s statement, saying that it cements his state’s status as “the leader in space exploration.”