Elon Musk can’t stop tweeting about all the jobs he’s bringing to Texas.
Tesla’s new factory in Austin will need 10,000 hires through 2022, double the previous pronouncement, Musk said Wednesday on Twitter. The tweet came less than an hour before President Joe Biden is slated to lay out his infrastructure plan, in which clean energy and new jobs will be a big focus.
Musk is rapidly expanding his Texas footprint. The new hiring goal in Austin represents a big step up from June, when Tesla told local officials that the factory would bring 5,000 “middle-skill” jobs to Travis County, with positions that pay solid wages without requiring substantial higher education. And this week, Musk issued a public invitation to engineers interested in working for Space Exploration Technologies, his rocket maker, in South Texas.
The Austin plant will produce the forthcoming electric Cybertruck and Model Y crossovers for customers on the East Coast. Texas is the third most popular state for Tesla vehicles, after California and Florida.
Drone footage of the Austin plant shows that construction is moving quickly. The challenge for Tesla in 2021 is one of global expansion amid increased competition as legacy automakers play catch-up with regard to electric vehicles.