Do as I whine, not as I sign.
Despite Elon Musk’s constant stream of criticism about California’s politics, business climate, and quality of life issues, the billionaire’s companies keep gobbling up new office leases in the Bay Area.
This time, Musk’s brain-implant company Neuralink is going to take an entire research building in South San Francisco. According to real estate sources, the company has agreed to lease a newly-constructed, 144,000-square-foot property at 499 Forbes Blvd.
The deal for the building comes more than a year after the tech mogul abruptly closed X’s former headquarters in San Francisco and relocated most of its workers to the South Bay, where he has been accumulating hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space for xAI and Tesla at Page Mill Road in Palo Alto.
Over the years, Musk — who has closely aligned himself with President Donald Trump and spent the first half of the year leading the Department of Government Efficiency — has said he wants to move his companies to Texas.
But his real estate deals tell a different story.
In 2023, Musk stood side by side with Gavin Newsom (opens in new tab) and announced that Palo Alto would be Tesla’s “Global Engineering and AI HQ.” There, the electronic automobile manufacturer leased 325,000 square feet at an office complex known as Stanford Research Park. The year after, xAI took another 77,000 square feet in the same area, according to a recent SEC filing (opens in new tab).
Neuralink, which is based in Fremont, did not respond to a request for comment. The San Francisco Business Times was the first to report (opens in new tab) on the company’s South San Francisco lease.
It is not clear if the brain implant company will relocate its offices or whether this latest deal represents an expansion. The Fremont facility, located at 7400 Paseo Padre Pkwy., has been occupied by Neuralink since 2018 and includes a rare vivarium — an enclosed area for keeping animals for observation or study.
Real estate experts say such infrastructure is highly complex and expensive to build because of regulatory and operational requirements. The marketing materials for 499 Forbes Blvd. (opens in new tab) do not list such facilities among the building’s offerings.
Musk’s shopping spree doesn’t appear to be slowing. According to another report (opens in new tab), xAI is on the hunt for 250,000 square feet of additional office space either in Palo Alto or South Bay.
The job listings also tell a story. According to its careers page, xAI currently has 60 openings (opens in new tab) for its Palo Alto office. While Neuralink has 49 openings in Fremont (opens in new tab) and X has 18 openings (opens in new tab) in Palo Alto and San Jose.
X’s offices in Bastrop, Texas, by comparison, only have 11 openings (opens in new tab).