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Facebook Moving To Texas? Parent Company ‘Meta’ Signs Massive Lease In Downtown Austin

   DailyWire.com
Visitors take photographs in front of signage at Meta Platforms headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., on Friday, Oct. 29, 2021.
Nick Otto/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Facebook’s parent company Meta has become the latest California corporation to at least partly move to Texas as it has signed a massive lease called “the largest ever in downtown Austin.”

“The lease is the largest ever in Downtown Austin and larger than the entire Frost Bank Tower in terms of square feet,” KVUE reported.

The Austin Business Journal reported the lease includes all office space in the city’s tallest tower. The skyscraper is still under development.

“Months of speculation have come to an end as California-based Meta Platforms Inc. — the parent company of Facebook — recently leased the entire commercial half of Sixth and Guadalupe, the 66-story high-rise under construction downtown that will be Austin’s tallest building when finished. The social media company has also pledged hundreds more jobs in the Texas capital,” the report said.

The lease includes 589,000 square feet across 33 floors of the skyscraper.

“We first came to Austin over 10 years ago with just seven employees, now over 2,000 of us are proud to call Austin home. We’re committed to Austin and look forward to growing here together,” Katherine Shappley, head of Meta’s Austin office and vice president for commerce customer success, told the outlet.

Facebook announced in July that it would be embarking on a “metaverse” initiative, changing the company’s new name to “Meta.”

“Announcing [Meta] — the Facebook company’s new name,” Facebook announced on Twitter. “Meta is helping to build the metaverse, a place where we’ll play and connect in 3D. Welcome to the next chapter of social connection.”

The Daily Wire previously reported:

The name change was formally announced by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during the company’s virtual reality and augmented reality conference, Facebook Connect. 

“I’ve been thinking a lot about our identity as we begin this next chapter. Facebook is one of the most used products in the history of the world,” Zuckerberg said, according to CNN. “It is an iconic social media brand, but increasingly it just doesn’t encompass everything that we do.

“Today we’re seen as a social media company,” he added, “but in our DNA, we are a company that builds technology to connect people. And the metaverse is the next frontier just like social networking was when we got started.”

Meta is one of a string of companies in California that have moved part or all of its operations to Texas.

Elon Musk announced the move of much of Tesla’s operations to Texas in September. The Daily Wire reported:

Musk previously threatened to move Tesla’s headquarters last year when COVID lockdowns shuttered the company’s manufacturing facility in Fremont, California.

“Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependen [sic] on how Tesla is treated in the future,” Musk tweeted.

“Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA,” Musk added.

Tesla filed a lawsuit in May 2020 against Alameda County, where Fremont is located, but later dropped the suit the same month. Meanwhile, the Fremont plant resumed operations in violation of public health orders.

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