The ink isn’t even dry on Elon Musk’s deal with Twitter, but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) is already asking the billionaire to relocate the social media company from San Francisco. In fact, ditching The Golden State for The Lone Star State is looking like a trend. Check out the biggest companies that have already made the move in this week’s Five For Friday.
#5: Charles Schwab
After purchasing discount broker TD Ameritrade in 2020, Schwab relocated from San Francisco to a $100 million campus in Westlake, Texas. While the company was looking for a more centrally-located hub, no income tax, low corporate tax and cheaper labor are other obvious draws.
#4: CBRE
Formerly known as Coldwell Banker, the giant commercial real estate firm already had a sizable Texas presence before it officially decamped from Los Angeles for Dallas. According to the company’s own 2022 U.S. Investor Intentions Survey, Dallas is the top U.S. city for commercial real estate investment, just ahead of Austin, Texas.
#3: Oracle
One of the world’s largest software companies left its deep Silicon Valley roots for “Silicon Hills” — what people are calling Austin these days. According to the company, the move wasn’t just about reducing taxes but also giving its 135,000 employees more “location flexibility.” In a twist, billionaire co-founder Larry Ellison also moved out of California, but not to Texas. He’s using the “power of Zoom” to work from his island in Hawaii.
#2: Hewlett Packard Enterprise
HP pretty much started Silicon Valley in a tiny garage way back in 1939. And while Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) is now a completely separate company, relocating to Texas is rife with symbolism. The high-end storage firm is joining the parade of firms whose employees now find the cost of the California dream too high.
#1: Tesla
Last year, Elon Musk moved Tesla headquarters from Palo Alto to Austin, where, by his own estimates, the Gigafactory is a mere “five minutes from the airport, 15 minutes from downtown.” Maybe he doesn’t yet know Austin traffic is fairly on par with the Bay Area he left behind.