Elon Musk relocates to Texas from California

Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk said on Tuesday he had relocated to Texas from California as he wants to focus more on the new Tesla Inc plant and his SpaceX venture.

Musk confirmed the move in an interview with Matt Murray, the Wall Street Journal's editor in chief. "The two biggest things that I got going on right now are the Starship development in South Texas ... and then the big new U.S. factory for Tesla," the 49-year-old Tesla chief said.

"It wasn't necessarily a great use of my time here (in California)". Texas might potentially offer some tax reprieve for the world's second richest man. It does not collect personal income tax while California has some of the highest state tax rates in the United States.

A 670% rally in Tesla shares this year has boosted Musk's net worth from $27 billion to $155 billion, just behind Amazon.com Inc's Jeff Bezos, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. In a conversation touching a wide range of topics including government intervention, technology companies and corporate policy, Musk criticized CEOs of other U.S. companies for not focusing enough on their products.

"If you find yourself spending a lot of time giving presentations and reviewing spreadsheets, you're barking up the wrong tree," Musk said. On Tesla's move to raise $5 billion in capital, he said: "We thought we can retire a lot of the debt and increase the security of the company ... have more of a war chest."