Are businesses really fleeing California?

Federal data show an acceleration in the number of businesses leaving, and the state’s tax and regulatory climate ranks among the toughest in the country. But there’s another side of California, a place that continues to draw and retain companies that need specialized science and tech talent.

Last year, leaders of major California-based companies received a curious package — a burner phone preloaded with a number, along with a note.

“If you ever need anything, I’m a phone call away,” read one of the notes, which included a handwritten postscript from Gov. Gavin Newsom.

While it sounds straight from the pages of a modern romance novel, it was a very real effort to court business elites in the world’s fourth-largest economy.

The gesture lends credence to headlines trumpeting a California exodus. Tesla, Oracle and Chevron are just a few giants that have moved their headquarters out of the state.

But as early as 2023, similar headlines were coming out of Texas, the supposed promised land that lured those companies and many more. Tesla and Chevron remain, but Oracle has since announced plans to leave, and mass layoffs suggest Silicon Valley 2.0 isn’t quite living up to the hype.

All the while, Newsom maintains an outward confidence that California is still the global leader in tech, evidenced by the AI boom and Apple’s apparent loyalty.

So what’s really going on?

To find out — at least at the regional level — we conducted exit interviews with companies that have left and one that came back.

– Dakota Morlan, managing editor

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