Elon Musk's SpaceX moving from Los Angeles to Boca Chica, Texas

In blow to Los Angeles, SpaceX is moving some Mars spaceship and booster work to Texas

In a reversal of a deal local officials had touted as a win for Los Angeles tech, SpaceX will no longer build its Mars spaceship and rocket booster system at the Port of Los Angeles. Instead, work to build and test the prototype will be done in south Texas.

SpaceX said in a statement Wednesday that the decision was made to “streamline operations.”

In a tweet, Chief Executive Elon Musk said: “Starship & Raptor [engine] development is being done out of our HQ in Hawthorne, CA. We are building the Starship prototypes locally at our launch site in Texas, as their size makes them very difficult to transport.”

SpaceX has completed assembly of a prototype of the Starship hopper vehicle at its Boca Chica facility in south Texas, where it also plans to conduct tests in which the prototype will launch and go up in the air briefly before returning to Earth.

The move comes just days after SpaceX, saying it needed to get “leaner,” announced that it would lay off about 10% of the company’s more than 6,000 employees. About 577 employees in Hawthorne are affected, according to a state WARN Act notice dated Friday.

L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said last year that SpaceX told the city of L.A. it preferred to have its Mars rocket and spaceship facility close to Hawthorne. A port official told commissioners last year that SpaceX had also been looking at potential sites in Louisiana and Texas.

John Bel Edwards missed landing yet another company.