The Elon Musk/Minnesota relationship grows

1004

We already know that the Tesla founder is something of a fan of the North Star State:

And now the billionaire tech giant is expanding his Tesla footprint further here in Minnesota with the recent purchase of Perbix, a Brooklyn Park-based maker of automated factory equipment.

Though it’s not an entirely new thing: Tesla has been courting the local robotics company for the past few years ordering custom machinery from them. But now they’ve made it official: Tesla plans to keep Perbix headquartered in Brooklyn Park, while continuing to expand its automated manufacturing and battery plants further west in California and Nevada. Price and terms of the deal were not disclosed, so we don’t know how much this relationship is really worth to Musk. But still, it’s a big deal.

This also isn’t the first Tesla has strayed north for manufacturing acquisition: They also bought Michigan parts stamping company Riviera back in 2015.

Perbix was founded in 1976, making assembling equipment and machine parts. The company switched its focus to creating custom parts for factory automation in 2001. There are currently 150 under employ, but Tesla is thinking bigger for this relationship and plans to recruit more.

And so the Minnesota/Musk connection continues. What’s next? Maybe he’ll send a Minnesotan to Mars on one of his SpaceX rockets? The climate there can’t be all that different than our harsh Minnesota winters.

If you haven’t already, read this next: Elon Musk’s Minnesota Connection