This seems like he's renting a place in Texas and making a big deal out of 'moving there' to make a point about California's regulatory environment.
But, he's keeping his house in CA (for "weekends and vacations"), and he's building his studio in Vegas to be an exact replica of the old one.
So, yeah, charitably, "moving" for the highly wealthy does not really look anything like "moving" for anybody else.
Less charitably, it seems like a scam. In GS' case, nobody can tell where he's doing his work from, so "oh we spent too long at the beach on this 'vacation day,'" better stay here and film tomorrow's episode from CA, nobody will ever know." In EM's case, I suspect he spends more time business-traveling than at home anyway, so it would be pretty difficult to prove which of his houses he "lives" in.
And if anybody balks, there's a huge amount of PR content proving that they "moved."
This wouldn't bug me so much if it weren't for the arrogant, selfish, hubristic political comments they always make on the way out.
Of course, the Castro government seized his assets in Cuba come the revolution, so I don't think it worked out for him in the long run, financially speaking.
I'm not sure about that. I think in these high profile cases tax authorities are more inclined to look into it given how much money there is in the balance. And it's somewhat easier to track people like EM precisely because of their lifestyles: flights would be paid by his companies which would keep receipts for a few years, they would interact with other people from the company in certain location and have a shared calendar, including meeting locations.
https://hbr.org/2018/07/how-ceos-manage-time
"About half (47%) of a CEO’s work was done at company headquarters. The rest was conducted while visiting other company locations, meeting external constituencies, commuting, traveling, and at home."
Shockingly I didn't see anything about time spent on Hacker News. There's probably a lesson there, or something. :)
It's possible this move might help Musk become a "nonresident" and pay less CA taxes, but I kinda doubt it. The classification of type of resident is based on more than just "official address of your house". It also includes things like where your work is, what banks you use, what doctors you go to, and even what social activities you take part in.
This is pretty common in many states, btw. One time I had to file a tax return to a small city in Michigan because I had a 4-hour work meeting there and they taxed it.
https://www.ftb.ca.gov/file/personal/residency-status/part-y...
What's the definition of "reside"? In the US, it's generally not just a matter of where you sleep at night or where you keep stuff; the legal definition of "residence" is a matter of intent, where you intend your permanent place of residence to be. Of course there needs to be objective evidence of your intent: you can't just say "I live in Texas" if you own a home in California which you aren't renting to anyone else, but don't own any real estate in Texas. But it looks like Musk is selling all his California property. Even if he doesn't buy a home in Texas, if he has a permanent rental of one there, but only rents places in California temporarily when he travels there for business, legally his residence would indeed be in Texas.