For a generation or more, the great rivalry among states was between New York and California. New York was the traditional center of business and finance, California the upstart home of the entertainment industry, followed by technology.
But California and New York are now dying. Individuals and companies are fleeing both for greener pastures. Palantir is the latest California-born tech company to move to Florida, although it stopped off briefly in Colorado–now, like California and New York, a blue state:
Palantir announced Tuesday it has moved its headquarters from Denver to Miami – joining a slew of tech firms fleeing to South Florida as a growing number of industry leaders deem it the new Silicon Valley.
Tech giants have been increasingly flocking to Florida from business hubs like New York and California in pursuit of lower taxes, warm weather and safer neighborhoods.
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Palantir was founded in Palo Alto, Calif., in 2003 and moved to Denver in 2020 as its CEO Alex Karp emerged as a vocal critic of Silicon Valley’s culture.Former Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, who has long pushed for tech talent to move to Florida, cheered Tuesday’s “watershed moment for Miami.”
Miami has become a huge hub for both tech and finance:
Citadel’s Ken Griffin and real estate magnate Stephen Ross – some of the highest-profile billionaires to move to South Florida during the pandemic – recently launched a $10 million campaign to encourage business leaders to move to the Sunshine State….
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Apple has already expanded its presence in South Florida with a new Miami campus, while software company ServiceNow has committed to opening an office in West Palm Beach.Amazon earlier this year signed a massive office lease in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood. Citadel’s Griffin – who lived in Chicago for nearly three decades – was one of the most outspoken business leaders to vouch for Miami after his 2022 move.
“I’ve lived in a failed city-state. I lived in Chicago for 30-some years. I had two colleagues who had bullets fly through their cars,” Griffin previously told Fox News.
“I had 25 bullet holes in the front of my building where I lived. You can’t live in a city awash [with] violent crime.”
Who is moving to California or New York? Or Chicago. No one, pretty much.
The only rival to Florida is Texas. Austin is an enormous tech hub, while both Dallas and Houston are economic powerhouses. Dallas has become a financial center and now has its own stock exchange. Florida and Texas are poised to be the great rivals of the 21st century, as New York and California were in the 20th.
What do Florida and Texas have in common? No income tax, to begin with. That is obviously a huge factor. But it is more than that: both are competently run. Ron DeSantis may go down as the greatest governor in American history. Consider this fact: Florida has three million more people than New York, yet its state budget is less than half of New York’s; $116 billion, compared with New York’s $254 billion. And Florida’s budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year is actually down $3 billion from the year before, despite the state’s burgeoning population. How can a state like New York possibly compete?
And if DeSantis’s record is without peer, Texas’s Greg Abbott probably comes closer than anyone else.
These thoughts are on my mind, as I will soon head for the airport to return to Minnesota after three days in Naples, Florida. Naples may not be Heaven, but it will do until we shuffle off this mortal coil. I was here for our annual American Experiment event, where we connect with friends and donors who are in the Naples area for the winter or, in many cases, permanently. This is me speaking at last night’s event, which drew 260 Minnesotans and fellow Minnesotans. Former Congressman and radio talk show host Jason Lewis spoke, as well:
I talked about events in Minnesota over the last couple of months, which is to say, about rampant fraud and corruption, followed by official Resistance to federal law. It is a depressing narrative of incompetence, and worse. Of course, if you live in Florida instead of Minnesota you not only escape corruption and high taxes, you also have to put up with this:
All 50 states are in competition with one another, whether they like it or not, and whether they choose to acknowledge it or not. Not to compete is to lose. States like California, New York and Minnesota need to get their acts together fast, before they become wholly irrelevant.
