Elon Musk's threat Tuesday to move the headquarters of Hawthorne-based SpaceX and San Francisco-based social media platform X to Texas is just the latest example of the rich and powerful trying to score political points by attacking the Golden State.
Musk attributed the move to the law signed the day before by Gov. Gavin Newsom that protects LGBTQ+ students from being outed by prohibiting school districts from requiring teachers to notify their parents about their gender identification or sexual orientation. He also included the oft-repeated rumor about San Francisco's crime-ridden streets by saying he was “sick of dodging gangs of violent drug addicts just to get in and out of the building” at X's headquarters.
The California-bashing refrain has become a common refrain among Republican politicians and wealthy moguls who dislike their liberal-leaning policies. San Francisco venture capitalist David Sacks described his city as a “cesspool” in a speech Tuesday at the Republican National Convention. Former President Trump frequently describes California as a dystopian hellhole, calling the state “a failure” and a “symbol of our nation’s decay.” The rhetoric is resonating enough that a national poll conducted for The Times last year found that nearly half of Republicans believe California is “a city that has nothing to do with society.”It's not really American.”
But here's a question for Musk, Trump and other GOP politicians and supporters who love to bash our state: If California is so terrible, why can't they dare to say goodbye to it?
We have some ideas why.
Let’s start with our economic strength. California is the fifth-largest economy in the world, more powerful than India, Brazil or Canada. We are a huge market with more than 39 million people, whose consumers and businesses are responsible for a huge share of the country’s economic growth, trade and innovation. We are number one in tourism revenue and in the number of startups. We have the largest technology industry in the country by far, and we lead the country in manufacturing and agricultural production jobs.
California is also a piggy bank for politicians, who fly in to raise money for their campaigns, even if they don’t do much campaigning here. Trump’s disdain for California hasn’t stopped him from traveling to mansions and estates in Beverly Hills, Newport Beach and San Francisco to solicit money from wealthy donors. Trump has raised more donations for his 2024 presidential campaign here than in any other state, including his own.
We are also a source of money for red states like Texas, Kentucky and Mississippi that rely on us because Californians send more tax revenue to the federal government than we receive. The generosity is due to our large and relatively young population and abundance of high-income earners.
And what about our universities, which Republican politicians have criticized for being “woke” and for allowing students to exercise their right to free speech by protesting the war in Gaza? Stanford, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Caltech and other world-renowned institutions have produced many dozens of Nobel laureates and innovators who have launched thousands of successful companies that have shaped the global economy.
California also sets the agenda for environmental protection. And while critics of big business and politics regularly attack our strict regulations as a burden on their bottom lines, they ignore how often those same regulations spur investment and growth in clean, renewable technologies that don't destroy the planet.
Musk should know. His companies were built using billions of dollars in government subsidies. Tesla alone has received more than $2.5 billion in zero-emission vehicle credits from California, and it has benefited from $436 million in consumer rebates for Tesla buyers and hundreds of millions more in other state tax credits to help green companies that want to stay in California. The state’s climate policies are a major reason California leads the nation in electric vehicle sales, with more than a third of the country’s electric vehicles — many of them Teslas — registered in the state.
It’s not the first “take my business elsewhere” threat that Musk, now a Trump supporter, has made, citing California’s labor protections, environmental rules or its enforcement of pandemic health restrictions. Whether it’s bluster or substance remains to be seen. Musk previously announced he would move Tesla’s headquarters to Texas and close its electric car factory in Fremont, California, only to later expand operations in the Golden State.
Of course, California faces the same problems as other places, and our issues with affordable housing, homelessness, drug abuse, and pollution are magnified because of our size. But we are proud to live in a place that is trying to equitably address our shortcomings, and where freedom is not defined solely by the ability of the wealthy and business interests to do whatever they want. In California, we know that freedom also comes from other priorities we value: safe workplaces, living wages (our $16 minimum wage is more than double that of Texas), access to abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, a healthy environment, and safety from gun violence.
California's Republican Party detractors will no doubt continue to repeat their supposed disgust for our state for as long as it suits them. But they will never abandon us. We have too much to offer.
