Texas recently got a pat on the back from the chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co. No, not because the state has been so defiant of federal authority. It’s because of Texas’s business-friendly policies.
Dimon applauded Texas and urged other areas, including New York City, to do more to attract investment. Some of the things he likes about Texas are the lack of an income tax and its light regulatory touch.
Those two factors have allowed companies to relocate or expand in the state. JPMorgan’s workforce in Texas is now over 30,000 and has been in recent years. In contrast, New York’s total fell from 35,000 to 29,000.
“Mayors and governors call you up here, and they say, ‘Jamie, what can we do to get more employees?’” he said Tuesday after a tour of a worker-training facility in Houston. “And you can look at other states, which are almost completely opposite.”
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Dimon sounds upbeat about Texas, a shift in tone from his stance in November. Back then, he warned that the state was at risk of undermining its business-friendly reputation with laws punishing Wall Street banks for their policies.
The policies were limiting work with the gun and fossil-fuel industries. Now, it appears all is well again, and now New York City’s elected officials are at the receiving end of his ire instead. They were the reason Amazon.com Inc. chose not to build a second headquarters there.
“In New York City, the elected — not the mayor, not the governor, but a lot of the elected — they don’t want business,” he said. “They didn’t let Amazon come in and build a whole new thing there.”
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In 2019, Amazon pulled out of plans to locate part of its second headquarters in New York after criticism from politicians. US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among those vocal with criticism over government incentives offered to the company.
The e-commerce giant ultimately signed a lease in New York’s Hudson Yards neighborhood with enough space for more than 1,500 workers. That value was far lower than the 25,000 the company was initially planning to add in Queens.
Texas has been attracting more employers in recent years. Tesla Inc. and Charles Schwab Corp. moved their headquarters to the state from California, and Caterpillar Inc. joined them from Illinois.
Elon Musk even recently hinted at shifting Tesla’s business incorporation to Texas from Delaware. Meanwhile, his rocket maker, SpaceX, filed earlier this month to convert its incorporation to Texas.
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In finance, the workforce has grown in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. During the pandemic, it even surpassed Chicago and Los Angeles to claim second spot for jobs in the industry. The Dallas area is home to more than 380,000 finance workers, trailing only New York. Dimon said political tensions with Texas occasionally flare up.
According to him, he gets “a little pushback” from state officials over environmental initiatives that his bank has endorsed. In response, he calls them and explains what is going on and why it is happening. It seems to work, but until when?
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