Out-of-the-blue phone call resulted in Tesla's huge Austin land buy
October 14, 2021 at 16:30 PM EDT
Real estate broker Matt Mathias was pulling up his ski pants in Telluride, Colorado, when he said he got the call that would further change Austin's trajectory. A Tesla executive was on the phone: Elon Musk, searching for a location for a new electric vehicle factory, didn't like the sites he had visited and was getting ready to leave town.