California Loses One More Company to Texas, as Chevron Flees the Once “Golden State”
California’s climate change lawsuit targeting fossil fuel companies added extra fuel to the relocation fire.
In 2020, Oracle moved its headquarters to Texas.
In 2021, Elon Musk moved Tesla headquarters to the Lone Star State. This move was inspired by the arrogant, power-mad, greedy politicians who run this state.
A story in 3 panels. #Capitalism #CaliforniaVSTexas pic.twitter.com/xCrYCF2eto
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) October 8, 2021
More recently, SpaceX CEO Musk announced that firm would also relocate headquarters to Texas. This time, his decision was based on the state enacting woke legislation depriving parents of basic rights over their children.
Now, another big and profitable firm is following the Exodus out of California.
Chevron has been headquartered in California for over 140 years. It had strong roots in this state.
But the toxic policies of California’s lawmakers and regulators have killed those roots. Chevron will be relocating to Texas.
The move announced Friday will end the company’s 145 years of being based in the most populous US state. The shift prompted Texas Governor Greg Abbott to welcome Chevron to its “true home,” while a spokesperson for his California counterpart Gavin Newsom dismissed it as a “logical culmination” of a years-long transition by the oil giant.
Chevron already had slashed new investments in California refining, citing “adversarial” government policies in a state that has some of the most stringent environmental rules in the US. In January, refining executive Andy Walz warned that the state was playing a “dangerous game” with climate rules that threatened to spike gasoline prices.
California, especially the area around the city of Richmond, is poised to lose the taxes from over 7,000 employees as well as the business revenues it collected from Chevron. Houston will soon begin reaping the benefits of being a business-friendly environment in a state which is has a more positive outlook on big energy companies and less liberty-crushing laws.
Chevron said in a press release the move will allow better collaboration between its executives, partners and employees. The oil company already has roughly 7,000 employees in the Houston area. It expects all corporate functions to relocate to Houston over the next five years.
ExxonMobil also moved its headquarters to Houston from Irving, near Dallas, last year.
Texas’ oil and gas production saw surges in crude oil production last year even as the federal government tightened its environmental regulations. The state produced more than 2 million oil barrels and supplied 42% of the nation’s oil last year, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
The 7,000 employees also supported a vast network of restaurants, stores, schools, and other facilities. I can’t wait to see what the next California budget projection will be.
Likely, California’s climate change lawsuit targeting fossil fuel companies added extra fuel to the relocation fire.
Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said the company wants to move its employees to one central hub. He also acknowledged the company has been vocal about its differences of opinion with California on energy policy.
“We believe California has a number of policies that raise costs, that hurt consumers, that discourage investment and ultimately we think that’s not good for the economy in California and for consumers,” Wirth said in an interview.
Last year, California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, filed a lawsuit against Chevron and other large oil companies such as Exxon Mobil and Shell, making a case that the companies didn’t inform the public of the effects of burning fossil fuels on the climate. Chevron is named in a large number of climate lawsuits across the U.S.
“We believe that climate is a matter that’s a global issue and is best addressed through national and global policy engagement, and not through the courts,” Wirth said.
Now, I an not a relationship expert. However, I would surmise that no matter how long a relationship has lasted, once one partner in said relationship starts accusing the other of being a globe-killing criminal, a breakup becomes inevitable.
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Here is the list of companies that have left California with over 100 employees, 2020-24.
Some like Toyota saw the writing on the wall a bit earlier.
https://buildremote.co/companies/companies-leaving-california/#download
Sounds great but when the employees bring their liberal politics with them, they’re threatening to turn parts of Texas blue.
Maybe they aren’t that liberal since they’re working for an evil fossil fuel company.
Houston is already as blue as blue can be.
Ronald Reagan’s California is gone with the wind. Nothing lasts forever. Either relocate, or remain and enjoy the decline.
The ultimate knife-twist that the oil companies could add would be to rebuild its refining capacity elsewhere.
A long time instructor of mine called it the urine colored state and it fits. I first moved to Cali in 1980. The noticeable transition came with the Simpson Mazzoli immigration law and then the slow but steady socialization of the state….designed to bring the same to the rest of the country. The formula works and the Biden border plan is a large scale version of the Cali plan. The white gentry dems that sought power will be displaced ….. Newsom will be the last non-hispanic governor… that is only bad in that the next gov will be marxist in mindset. Make California Mexico (Re-Conquista) will be “make the USA Venezuela. “
I was very surprised to learn that Chevron is based in California. I had assumed that all the U.S. oil majors were based in Texas.
Chevron management has certainly given ample time and opportunity to greasy apparatchik, Newsolini, and his minions, to clean up their act, before deciding to ship out to greener pastures and more hospitable climes.
Count on the vile Dhimmi-crats to perennially strive to create the most economically inhospitable environments, in the U.S.
My Dad was an engineer at the refinery in Richmond CA. The company was Standard Oil of California then. We moved to Mississippi about a month after I turned 2 as he was one of the many engineers moved to help build and open the refinery in Pascagoula, Ms. California elected mostly republican governors then and they missed living there until it started becoming the state it is now.
Indeed, your dad worked in different times, when California had politicians who actually were hospitable towards businesses and entrepreneurs.
Now that I think about it, in addition to the oil industry, many people have forgotten about California’s former, huge role in the aviation, aerospace and defense industries.
But, today’s Dhimmi-crats are openly hostile towards the defense and oil industries, and, seem content to pander to leftist-dominated industries, such as Big Tech.
create the most economically inhospitable environments, in the U.S.
yes… and in the awful event that Orange Man does not carry the counted vote in November, we will all fall under the reign of a California export Kamelnose, which shall be deeply inserted under the borders of our national tent, and wreak the same sort of Tragic upon the nation that her crones have managed to create in the former Golden State. Having observed her history since her birth, there is little doubt concerning that of which she is made, and thus that which she will surely inflict upon the rest of us.
I grew up in the Bay ARea first, then SO Cal. Of COURSE Standard Oil was based in Califrornia, It was our preffered fuel, and as I sarted running my own cars, I carried on. It did seem to run better. But back then I could fill up my Sprite or Mini (8 whole gallons….) for less that one gallon costs today. Ah such is progress.
They still produce by far the best diesel engine oil under their Chevron trademark. I’ve tested all the otehrs, and am well setled on that.
For every Chevron, there are… how many carpenters, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, and everyday-Joes loading up their tools or computers and heading east?
It’s so bad even the bears are leaving.
The state flag has one of my (spiritual) brothers on it. I believe the last actual – that is, ursine – grizzly spotted there was well over a century ago.
THIS grizzly is quite happy here in northeastern Tennessee. If I thought I could handle the bitterly bad winters of Montana or Wyoming, I’d be living where the REAL grizzlies live. I think I trust them more than people.
Maybe the southern part of Wyoming or Montana wouldn’t be too cold.
Flat as a board. Unh unh!
What’s wrong with flat?
Paula: Bears live where there are streams and greenery and forests, and ponds to splash around in. They don’t live on the prairie.
Southcentral Alaska is moderated by the Japanese Currents. Its warmer at times in Anchorage than Atlanta. It usually rains around Christmas. The Panhandle is warmer but wetter.
Great point, Grizz — it’s not just huge, publicly-traded companies that are packing up and leaving the formerly Golden State — it’s small businesses, and, a slew of workers in skilled trades (as well as in other industries), also.
This is precisely why California resident, Victor Davis Hanson, sagely opines that California’s tax base as currently constituted (and, as will be exacerbated, in the future), is fiscally unsustainable. You cannot have a fiscally viable state in which the bulk of taxes are collected from a small group of deep-pocketed elites in Hollywood and in Silicon Valley, with diminishing taxes collected from a rapidly shrinking middle class, and, zero taxes collected from a huge (and, swiftly expanding) and shiftless entitlement/welfare class, at the bottom.
Again, must I need remind everyone that the toxic policies of California’s politicians are the consequence of the toxic voting patterns of the state’s voters? The voters brought this on themselves, let them wallow in the misery of their own making.
Certainly a different breed from the freedom-loving libertarian attitude of, say… Maryland voters.
Same breed. I would move but age is a great constraint.
if they don’t keep the refinery there up to ever changing codes (they won’t, they will close it) california is in world of hurt due to cross border (state to state) gas/fuel oil laws that prevent much from being shipped in.
I think it is more California’s ever-more-complex blend requirements for air quality zones that are so small in many cases that the gas station at, say, 3rd and Fairfax gets different gas than the one over at, say, Beverly Boulevard and Highland Avenue, and they are within two to three miles of each other. No out of state refinery is about to send dozens of trucks with different blends several hundred miles to get to various stations.
The logistics of it all are something about which I know next to nothing, but I DO know that when 3rd and Fairfax is out of 87 and the refinery made Beverly and Highland blend that day, 3rd and Fairfax is out of 87 until some is made. They can’t just send a different blend over; they will be fined heavily.
California, done away with their crzy ego-based laws )we can mandate it because we can…. despite it not mal=king a lick of sense or having any underlying “science”.
I would kile to see a court case where the State of California must justify, on a scientific and well-docmented basis, that the custom blends for each different city block actually make a discernible differenc to the air quality.
I grew up in So Calif and well remember the wretched smog.. so bad sometimes I literlly could not breathe the stuff. But, alternative being availb,e I had to drag that toxic junk into my poor burning lings.
The first “gadget” invented was mandated on cars starting in 1964 or so, the oil vapour recirc/burning device. My Dad actually got a kit and retrofited our old cars with this. That alone, within ine year, made a huge difference to the air quality. Later came some other things that made the gas engines burn clearer. The advent of turbochargers on diesels made a massive difference in their exhaust output. With those changes alne, smog in the LA Basin was recuced to acceptible levels. But da Gummit were not cintent to stop with good enough, once they had the power to make California cars “Spayshull” they went nuts, inventing then mandating all manner of restrictions and changes.
WHile getting the lead out of gasoline made a huge improvement on overall health, that made NO difference in the perceived air quality. Ever the sceptic, I must concur that lead free fuel IS necessary. New developments in materials for engines made the change possible and not that dear.
I hope the Gabbling uisance is proud of his legacy, being foisted upin the millions counted and not counted who dwell within his little fiefdom. I also fear that if Range Man does not prevail in November the rest of us will be inflicted with California style “rule” as the KamelNose protrudes deeply under the sirts of the tent.
Chevron to Kalifornistan:
“You can all go to Hell. We’re going to Texas.”
It’s too bad that a ‘breakup’ doesn’t occur between the enslaved and the Democrat party.
Stockholm, move over. There’s a new group of mind controlled influencers.
Two long time personal friends of mine, both having built VERY successful businesses in the State of Oregon (County of Multnomah) have packed up and shifted their entire operations, one to Texas the other to Idaho. Another friend of mine had the option of starting his business in Oregin a few years back, but decided to locate in Idaho. He built that up over maybe ten years, and someone decided HEY wanted it.. badly enough to give him more money than he could have imagined. So he sold, walked with about Mn$9 and bought a large rural property in Oregon. Since he is not running it as a business Oregon’s stupid laws don’t affect him much. But he COULD have invested his Mn$’s in a new business.. but would not do it in Oregon. He ain’t no dummy. Not bad for a forty year old kid…. (I can say that because I held him when he was about a week old and watched him grow up)
Me and my wife are both originally from California in the late 50s. We met in college. Our sons were born in Northern California in the 80s. My business ended up moving me to the east coast in the mid 90s and it was a good move for us financially. Most of our family on both sides are out of the state, but we still have a some in the state in all areas.