So maybe I'm stupid but... Why? Why does he feel he needs an excuse beyond "taxes are cheaper in Texas"? Like, it's understandable that a business owner wants to reduce costs, and reducing your taxes is one good way to do it. The blowback from saying something relatively mild like "I want to pay less taxes" is going to be way less than the blowback of saying "I want to leave California because trans people have too many rights here" right?

I'm not trying to defend Musk or anything here, I'm just so confused why he's going this route

He can farm hay on the SpaceX property and pay farm taxes in Texas. There are several mega factories down there that do this same thing.