Chevron will move its headquarters to Texas from California, following Elon Musk‘s Space X in relocating to the Lone Star State.
The gas giant’s new headquarters will be in Houston, Texas. It is currently based in San Ramon, California.
‘Houston is the epicenter of our industry,’ Chevron CEO Mike Wirth told CNBC. ‘We’ve had our headquarters gradually growing in Texas and gradually pulling down in California. This is a continuation of a trend that has been underway for some time.’
Chevron will move its headquarters to Texas from California – but claims it’s not political. ‘Houston is the epicenter of our industry,’ CEO Mike Wirth said
The move comes after Chevron announced lower-than-expected second-quarter earnings on Friday. Shares fell more than one percent during morning trading, according to CNBC.
The company’s net income declined 26 percent to $4.43 billion, compared to $6.01 billion at the same time last year, the outlet reported.
Its US production posted a profit of $2.16 billion, while its international production profit fell around 30 percent to $2.3 billion, according to CNBC.
Chevron’s global oil-equivalent production did rise 11 percent to 3.29 million barrels a day due to record production in the Permian Basin.
The company said the move was not politically motivated, thought it has long criticized the blue state’s leadership for its stance on the oil industry, the Financial Times reported.
California has sued Chevron and other oil companies over accusations they were misleading customers about the dangers of climate change.
The state has also accused oil companies of price gouging and has tried to force penalties on their profit, according to KTLA.
Chevron has long criticized the California’s leadership for its stance on the oil industry (pictured: CEO Mike Wirth)
All corporate functions will transition to Houston within the next five years, according to the outlet, while some positions will remain in San Ramon.
The company already has around 7,000 customers in Houston and around 2,000 in San Ramon, according to KTLA.
The company worked in crude oil fields and technical facilities, and it has two refineries. It also has more than 1,800 retail stations in California.
Musk is moving his companies’ headquarters from California to Texas for the business benefits, a Tesla analyst has claimed.
The 53-year-old billionaire said he is moving both SpaceX and X headquarters to the Lone Star State over California’s new gender identity laws.
He said Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of a law that bans California school districts from notifying parents if their child is transgender was ‘the final straw.’
The billionaire himself had even moved to Texas in 2020 after living in California for two decades.
Chevron is currently based in San Ramon, California
Critics slammed Musk for moving his companies, saying they deserve his business after taxpayers funded them and gave him benefits for years.
‘California, through tax credits, [electric vehicle] subsidies and training grants made Elon successful,’ Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, president of the California Labor Federation, told The Los Angeles Times.
‘That amounts to hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars, for him to continually spit in the face of California’s workers and taxpayers.’
Even residents are ditching the California lifestyle, with around 300 leaving for Texas each day – or around 111,000 people – in 2021.
That is double the 63,000 that made the same move in 2012, according to a new report from Storage Café, which examined California-Texas migration patterns over nearly a decade.
Of those that moved in 2021, nearly half were millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, and headed to counties around major cities such as Austin, Houston and Dallas.
