Another day, another massive company taking its money and jobs out of California, where Gavin Newsom and decades of Democrat rule have all but made it impossible to do business there with their Soviet-style rules and regulations.
Hil Davis, CEO of apparel and e-commerce company Digital Brands Group, just moved his headquarters from Vernon, California, to Round Rock, Texas — and he didn’t dress it up in corporate language. “Doing business in the state of California sucks,” he told Fox News.
The company is leasing 70,000 square feet of office space in the Lone Star State. The costs, he said, don’t add up anymore. “You start to add all those things up. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t make sense. It’s too hard.”
He cited the high cost of living, brutal employee commutes, rising costs of doing business, and the relentless expense of defending against California’s litigation climate. Every one of those factors is the direct result of deliberate policy choices made by Gavin Newsom and the California Democratic apparatus — not market conditions, not bad luck, not external forces beyond the state’s control. Choices. With predictable consequences that California continues to pretend are surprising.
Los Angeles County alone has seen nearly $1.9 billion in income walk out the door as filers relocated to other states. And the companies departing alongside that income tell the full story of what California is losing:
Tesla. Oracle. Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Charles Schwab. Chevron. SpaceX. Palantir. McKesson. FICO. Dropbox. X. Amgen. Anduril. In-N-Out Burger. Pabst. Lucas Oil. Snowflake. Valero. The list runs to dozens of companies taking billions in revenue and thousands of jobs to Texas, Florida, and other states that decided to govern with some level of economic sanity.
And it may be about to get worse: California’s billionaire tax — a “one-time” five percent wealth penalty on residents with a net worth over $1 billion — is on the November ballot, and has already driven numerous wealthy individuals and their tax dollars to other states before it’s even passed.
Gavin Newsom is currently plotting his 2028 presidential campaign. He went to Michigan for 65 hours and generated “a million social media views” while drawing 17 people to a barbecue. He staged a controlled viewing of his tax returns in a no-cameras, no-phones room while under active federal criminal investigation. He is, by every available indicator, preparing to run on his California record.
That record is Digital Brands Group moving to Texas. That record is $1.9 billion leaving LA County. That record is a list of departed companies so long it takes three full paragraphs to summarize. That record is the state with the highest income tax, the worst business climate, the most expensive housing, and a governor who thinks the problem is that he hasn’t explained his vision compellingly enough.
He wants to do to America what he did to California. “Doing business in California sucks.” America should take the warning seriously.
