The way of the future: Howard Hughes Co. is pitching Elon Musk on a Vegas Tesla HQ
The level of thirst being shown by businesspeople and mayors on Twitter over a possible Tesla HQ is kind of insane.
"Show me all the blueprints. Show me all the blueprints."
Elon Musk , being an outspoken gazillionaire with an interest in engineering, inevitably draws more than a few comparisons to Howard Hughes, aka the guy responsible for the Spruce Goose and the subject of my favorite Martin Scorcese film.
That's why it's funny and a little ironic that he's recently been approached by the Howard Hughes Corporation about moving Tesla HQ to Las Vegas, according to a report published Thursday by ABC News 3 Las Vegas.
So, you might be a little lost at this point. First, Howard Hughes is dead, but his businesses (well, some) live on, and real estate company Howard Hughes Co. is among them.
Why Las Vegas? Well, Hughes spent a significant amount of time in Vegas towards the end of his life and invested heavily in real estate there. His company still owns a good deal of it, including the Summerlin community, which you probably know as a place where rich people with dark secrets were often murdered on CSI.
Now, Elon's tiff with California over its coronavirus shelter-in-place restrictions on businesses is well-documented at this point. Several municipalities have been throwing themselves at him to have either a new Tesla factory placed with them or, to act as a new headquarters, free from California's pesky worker protections and higher costs of doing business.
The Howard Hughes Company's pitch came from current board chairperson Bill Ackman over Twitter -- aka Musk's favorite medium after Soundcloud -- and pitched him on not just Summerlin but also planned communities owned by the company near Dallas and Houston. They even made a sizzle reel to help sell it.
Vegas' mayor pro tem even got in on it, suggesting that the city could name a street after Musk's newest son, X Æ A-12. The levels of thirst on display here are unreal. Can you imagine Google Maps trying to pronounce X Æ A-12 Lane?
Will Musk actually move Tesla out of California? At this point, that's unclear. Doing so would be a massive expense for a company that only now has been able to turn a Q1 profit for the first time in its history, not to mention the logistical headaches. But, if he does, in the end, decide that the Golden State isn't the place for him, he won't be lacking for options in where to go next.
