JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A day after it was announced that Elon Musk had an agreement to purchase Twitter for $44 billion, Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry joined a chorus of elected officials looking to convince Musk to move Twitter headquarters to their state.
In a tweet directed at Musk on Tuesday night, Curry made his case.
“Mayor here. We’re a haven for tech talent with the 3rd largest monthly tech job growth in the US, outranking LA, Houston & Miami. We’re home to @FIS and @Dnbsmlbusiness and the state’s 1st Fintech Academy. I’m with @JimmyPatronis move the @Twitter HQ to Jax!” Curry tweeted.
@ElonMusk @CityofJax Mayor here. We're a haven for tech talent with the 3rd largest monthly tech job growth in the US, outranking LA, Houston & Miami. We're home to @FIS and @Dnbsmlbusiness and the state’s 1st Fintech Academy. I’m with @JimmyPatronis move the @Twitter HQ to Jax!
— Lenny Curry (@lennycurry) April 26, 2022
Right now, Twitter is headquartered is in San Francisco.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Tennessee U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn made similar pitches to Musk on Twitter, prompting a response from Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis.
“Nope. If you don’t have America’s best Governor (@GovRonDeSantis), you just can’t compete. #FloridaIsForWinners,” Patronis tweeted.
Musk has a history of moving companies he owns out of California. If Musk does decide to relocate, Texas may have the upper hand with Tesla and SpaceX already having big presences in the state. But clearly, Patronis isn’t a fan of the Lone Star State.
.@elonmusk - if you’re considering Texas, you better bring a lot of solar panels and a big, big battery. (Texas’s power grid is not great 😬.) Stick with Florida. Florida’s for winners, after all. https://t.co/IdKk0gIMSi
— Jimmy Patronis (@JimmyPatronis) April 26, 2022
“If you’re considering Texas, you better bring a lot of solar panels and a big, big battery. (Texas’s power grid is not great .) Stick with Florida. Florida’s for winners, after all,” Patrois tweeted.
It’s not the first time Curry has used social media to recruit Musk to Jacksonville. He lobbied the world’s richest man to bring Tesla to Jacksonville in 2020 after he expressed frustration with California.
Elon, Consider Florida. Jacksonville, Florida. You can open immediately. https://t.co/sj6TlhpS9X
— Lenny Curry (@lennycurry) May 9, 2020
News4JAX heard a lot of support for Curry’s push in Republican circles at the state level and in the local chamber of commerce, but News4JAX political analyst Rick Mullaney points out that Musk’s purchase of Twitter has become a political lightning rod. Mullaney said he thinks if he chose to move the headquarters out of San Francisco it would be for economic reasons.
“I really believe this is more about economics than politics. The mayor’s tweet, he’s not alone in that. There are elected officials from around the country that would love to have Twitter in their home town. In the end it’s more about economics than politics,” he said.