Another tech billionaire has left California for Texas.
Loading audio narration…
In an interview on “TBPN” on Friday, former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick told show hosts John Coogan and Jordi Hays that he moved to Texas at the end of 2025, when asked if Kalanick would like to come back to San Francisco and “Go back to being the king.”
“Well, here. So, first let’s just be clear,” said Kalanick. “On December 18th, I moved to Texas.”
“So I’m a primary resident of Texas,” Kalanick added.
Kalanick was born and raised in the Los Angeles area. He attended UCLA and maintained residences in Los Angeles. He co-founded Uber in San Francisco and resigned as its CEO in 2017 after facing investor pressure stemming from reports of a toxic work culture and multiple clashes with regulators.
Kalanick did not detail the reasons he moved to Texas, but he joins a growing list of billionaires who built their careers in California but left the state, either as individuals or as businesses, since COVID.
Some have flocked to Florida, while others have moved to Texas, citing favorable tax policies and business regulations.
Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO, founded SpaceX in California but relocated to Texas in 2020. While Tesla and SpaceX have a large presence in California, Tesla’s headquarters are in Austin, and in 2024, Musk said SpaceX would move its HQ to Starship, Texas.
In 2020, Oracle similarly announced that it had moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin.
As a result of the tech boom in Texas, billions are pouring into the state, mostly for company expansion and the race to build data centers. Austin in particular has emerged as a major destination for technology companies and investors, often dubbed “Silicon Hills.” Google, for instance, announced a $40 billion investment plan through 2027 to expand data centers, cloud capabilities, and new campuses in Texas.
California has floated a one-time billionaire wealth tax to support the state’s funding for schools and healthcare. The measure would need to reach the ballot and then be passed by voters to go into effect. It’s unclear if this affected Kalanick’s decision to decamp to Texas.
