After 145 years in California, the oil giant Chevron is moving its operations elsewhere.
Following in the footsteps of countless others who have left the Golden State, Chevron has concluded that due to its excessive regulations, high taxes and declining quality of life, California is no longer the right place for the company to operate.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
The oil giant was founded in California 145 years ago at the beginning of an era when the state became one of the world’s leading suppliers of oil and its byproducts.
But in recent years, the company has been butting heads with Sacramento over energy and climate policies, which now loom larger than manufacturing in many people’s minds. On Friday, the company said it is moving its headquarters from the Bay Area to Houston.
The move is part of a long, steady exodus of not only Chevron’s operations, but also the larger petroleum industry from California, which in its heyday early last century produced more than one-fifth of the world’s total oil.
While California remains the seventh-largest producer of oil among the 50 states, its production of crude has been sliding since the mid-1980s and is now down to only about 2% of the U.S. total, according to the latest U.S. Energy Information Administration data.
Needless to say, California’s loss will be Texas’s gain. Chevron currently has an estimated value of around $300 billion and will inevitably bring significant economic benefits to Houston and the surrounding areas.
Last month, Elon Musk announced that he would also be moving both SpaceX and Twitter/X from California to Texas, citing legislation bans schools from making rules requiring parental notification if a child seeks to identify as transgender.
“This is the final straw,” Musk wrote at the time. “Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.”
