Second-largest oil company ditches California for Texas to avoid tougher regulations

Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, plans to leave its historic California headquarters for Texas within the next five years, citing tougher regulations and the state’s climate action.

The company, whose predecessors have been headquartered in the state since 1879, will relocate its headquarters to Houston, Texas.

“We believe California has a number of policies that raise costs, hurt consumers, discourage investment and ultimately we believe that is not good for the California economy or for consumers,” the Chevron CEO said. Mike Wirth he said Wall Street Journal.

Last year, California passed a law to curb excessive refinery profits and sued major oil companies, including Chevron, saying they deceived the public for decades about the climate risks of fossil fuels. The state also taxes corporate profits, while Texas does not.

“We believe that climate is a global issue that is best addressed through national and global political engagement, not through the courts,” Wirth added in an interview with Journal.

Chevron has operations throughout California, including 2,000 employees at a corporate campus in San Ramon and a large refinery complex in Richmond.

The vast expanse of land hasn’t stopped California officials from investigating Chevron’s role in the climate crisis.

“For decades, the oil industry has played every single one of us in this room for idiots,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a speech at the United Nations in 2023, shortly after filing a lawsuit against the oil companies.

“They bribed politicians. They denied and delayed the science and basic information that they had access to and did not share or manipulate. Their deception and denial, which has been going on for decades, created the conditions that are still here today.”

Chevron is not the only major corporate tenant leaving the state.

In recent years, Elon Musk has made efforts to relocate the headquarters of X, SpaceX, and Tesla to Texas.

Other companies have joined the trend, including HP Enterprise and Oracle, which left California for Texas in 2020.