French aerospace company sees surge in U.S. applicants after SpaceX relocation news: 'Come to Europe and we'll help you'

Latitude, a French aerospace company based an hour outside Paris, is getting a surge of applications from American engineers after Elon Musk said he would relocate SpaceX headquarters from California to Texas.

Within the last week, a spokesperson for Latitude says it received the equivalent of one month of applications to its hiring systems, and that 89% of those are coming from U.S.-based candidates. Those job seekers work at SpaceX, Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Tesla and other companies related to the aerospace industry, the spokesperson tells CNBC Make It.

The bump comes after Musk wrote on X on July 16 that he intends to move his company's base from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas. The SpaceX founder and CEO says his decision follows the passing of a new state law that bans school districts from requiring teachers to notify parents about changes to a student's sexual orientation and gender identity.

Though it's unclear if, or when, SpaceX will leave California entirely, aerospace business leaders quickly used Musk's message to pitch themselves to the company's roughly 13,000 employees who may be concerned about their future career and relocation plans.

Stanislas Maximin, CEO at Latitude, wrote in a LinkedIn post that Space X employees "looking to join an inclusive and highly ambitious rocket company" should contact him — and they did.

"It was quite a surprise," Maximin tells CNBC Make It. Within a few days of his posts, he says he received some 200 messages of interest, and his LinkedIn network swelled from 6,000 to 9,000 connections.

He says the message wasn't a takedown of Musk or SpaceX, which Maximinrefers to as one of "the best engineering companies in the world." Rather, he says, "if you're not happy where