Chevron exec explains HQ move from California to Texas: 'tough place to do business'

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Chevron Chairman & CEO Mike Wirth sits down with FOX Business Maria Bartiromo to discuss Americas energy agenda, the demand for data centers and the regulatory environment.

Chevron's announcement last week that it would relocate its corporate headquarters from California to Texas occurred in part because it was becoming increasingly difficult to do business in California, a Chevron executive said Thursday.

Andy Walz, Chevron's president of Americas products, told reporters that the headquarters move comes after the company had gradually moved a number of employees from the San Ramon headquarters to the new headquarters in Texas in recent years as keeping them in the Golden State was becoming unsustainable.

«We've been doing that because California is a tough place to do business,» he said. «It's a tough place to recruit people. It's a tough place to move employees – a lot of our employees move up through the company, they gain experience in different geographies, different locations and we have a lot of people who will not move to California. That makes it difficult.»

«We have been moving the company's employee base to Houston for a long time. This is another step on that journey,» Walz said. «We're doing that because it's going to drive better performance for Chevron. Today, our leadership teams are spread across two different states, we're not together as much, so there's efficiencies, there's effectiveness by doing that.»

CHEVRON RELOCATING HEADQUARTERS FROM CALIFORNIA TO TEXAS

Chevron is moving its headquarters from California to Texas. — A Chevron gas station in Rodeo, California, on June 19, 2024. (Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)

«California's a tough place to have a