Oracle/Hewlett Packard Enterprise: Moving from California to Texas

In a prior blog post, I wrote about the wealthy leaving California. Now it looks like corporations are leaving, as well. This isn't a sudden situation. Toyota left California for Texas a few years back, but 2020 seems to be bringing a number of such headlines.

CNBC (Dec 11) reported that Oracle was moving their headquarters from California to Texas:

Oracle is the latest tech company to move its headquarters out of California. The company said on Friday it’s moving its headquarters from the Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas.

“Oracle is implementing a more flexible employee work location policy and has changed its Corporate Headquarters from Redwood City, California to Austin, Texas. We believe these moves best position Oracle for growth and provide our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work,” a spokesperson confirmed to CNBC.

. . . The coronavirus pandemic has given a number of tech companies and prominent Silicon Valley figures an excuse to exit California. Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced earlier this month that it will relocate its headquarters from San Jose, California, to Houston, Texas. Data analytics software company Palantir Technologies also moved its headquarters to Denver, Colorado from Palo Alto, California, earlier this year. 

Does CNBC know of a number of other tech firms that want out of California? Are they just saying that COVID-19 is giving companies an excuse to move out as a throwaway line or are they serious? Flexibility in work location does not mean that the headquarters needs to move from California to Texas so that is an obvious poor excuse. Will we be hearing stories of more corporations moving their headquarters out of California? Did Sacramento's talks of a wealth tax cause these corporations to pull the trigger and move?

Fox Business News (Dec 1) reported on Hewlett Packard Enterprise with this quote from the corporation: 

 “HPE has made the decision to relocate its headquarters from San Jose, California, to Houston, Texas. HPE’s largest U.S. employment hub, Houston is an attractive market to recruit and retain future diverse talent, and is where the company is currently constructing a state-of-the-art new campus. The Bay Area will continue to be a strategic hub for HPE innovation, and the company will consolidate a number of sites in the Bay Area to its San Jose campus. No layoffs are associated with this move.”

Should that last sentence read: No layoffs are associated with this move, YET."

If you're talking about headquarters moving, you're talking about 100's if not 1,000's of people with high six figure salaries leaving California. And people who want to move up the corporate ladder will also want to eventually move from California to Texas to be closer to the seat of power. It just seems to me that over the course of a few years, we'll see continued movement of employees from California to Texas for these two companies. 

A couple additional thoughts:

Since we know that about 50,000 households pay 40% of California's income taxes, is it possible that maybe 50 of those people just left (aboout to leave) California for Texas. Sure, that's just 0.1% of those households, but it isn't nothing.

Will these shifts result in Texas turning Blue over the next decade? Will Texas start seeing increases in taxes just like California? I wonder if Texas is specifically targeting corporations that they feel have a more politically centered workforce.