Rooftop solar. (Photo: www.energy.gov)
California Losing Another Big Tech Company to Texas: GAF Energy
This is why California ranks dead last once again in Chief Executive Magazine’s Best & Worst States For Business
By Katy Grimes, October 16, 2025 1:41 pm
Another California business bites the dust. Actually, GAF Energy, which sells solar panels embedded in roof shingles, is leaving California for Georgetown, Texas.
SF Gate reported:
“GAF Energy will shut down its San Jose headquarters on Dec. 13, it announced in a Thursday WARN document, filed with California officials. The company uses the facility for researching, developing and manufacturing its solar shingles — a whole green energy factory at San Jose’s southeastern corner, operational since 2021. But now, GAF Energy will lay off local workers and shift its official headquarters to Georgetown, Texas.”
GAF is so serious about their move they filed a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification “WARN” document notifying its 138 employees of the decision to move the business in advance.
“The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act helps ensure advance notice in cases of qualified plant closings and mass layoffs,” the U.S. Department of Labor, says. The DOL has compliance assistance materials to help workers and employers understand their rights and responsibilities under the provisions of WARN.
Booming Austin suburb Georgetown is gaining another corporate headquarters as GAF Energy, a solar roofing company, relocates from the California Bay Area, Yahoo Finance reports. “The company will close its facility in San Jose, Calif., and lay off 138 employees. It told the California Employment Development Department the moves are expected to be permanent.”
“This decision was not taken lightly,” GAF Energy President Martin DeBono said in a statement. “In light of ongoing changes in the solar industry, we are aligning our business and our team to focus on key markets where solar is most compelling for builders and homeowners. We are deeply grateful for our employees in San Jose and are committed to assisting those impacted through this transition.”
Yahoo Finance reports that GAF is receiving tax rebates, development fee waivers and cash incentives from the city of Georgetown, a suburb of Austin, Texas.
Over the summer the Globe reported that In-N-Out President Lynsi Snyder was relocating her family and company headquarters to Tennessee.
California ranks dead last once again in Chief Executive Magazine’s Best & Worst States For Business 2025 – the 14th year in a row. Tennessee ranks #1 once again, and now “The Volunteer State” is getting another of California’s oldest and one of the best known businesses in the country: After 77 Years in California, In-N-Out Is Moving to Tennessee.
In August, Bed Bath & Beyond announced that the company won’t open or operate retail stores in California, saying the decision “isn’t about politics – it’s about reality.”
Bed Bath & Beyond Executive Chairman Marcus Lemonis told ‘The Big Money Show’ that Bed Bath & Beyond will relaunch 300 stores nationwide — excluding California — while blasting high costs, strict regulations, and weak crime enforcement.
Bed Bath & Beyond filed Chapter 11 in 2023. Chapter 11 is a business reorganization, something Gavin Newsom doesn’t understand based on his nasty X post:
“The company that already went bankrupt and closed every store across the country two years ago? Ok.”
Notably, Bed, Bath & Beyond doesn’t have the Getty family as its business benefactor.
Marcus Lemonis was far more gracious in his reply to the governor.
California’s governor, who has a strained relationship with the truth, denies that Californians and their businesses are fleeing to other states, despite mountains of evidence, well-documented news articles, and economists across the country chronicling the phenomenon.
California’s own Chevron Oil company announced in 2024 that it would move its headquarters to Houston, Texas from San Ramon, California – another big business to flee the Golden State. Chevron joins X/Twitter, Space X, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Charles Schwab, and Toyota Motor North America, to name a few of the mega-businesses that departed California because of the state’s leftist/Marxist politics and regulatory environment.
“GAF Energy’s decision is likely influenced by Texas’ booming housing market as much as its business-friendly environment,” Yahoo Finance notes. “In 2024, the state accounted for 15% of all U.S. housing permits, driving demand for new construction and roof replacements, ideal for the company’s solar-integrated products, according to data from Realtor.com.”
A California native and Navy mom, Katy lives in Sacramento, CA.
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HP has not moved out of California (yet), but HP Enterprise has moved to Texas. HP Enterprise split from HP in 2015 as a separate company.
The Marxist Democrats have done nothing to improve the business climate. To them, the more poverty, the better. Desperate people will accept empty promises from politicians about making things better, which give the politicians more control. Make no mistake, the Democrats are not liberals anymore. They are no longer progressives. They are Communists.
Chalk this up to Newscum’s “4th largest economy in the world” funeral pyre of FAILURE!!!
Worst Governor in California EVER!!!
Music to Newsom’s ears.
The more folks dependant on the State the better.
California should be designated as an economic disaster zone!
The mayor of San Jose cannot be happy about this. The poor guy is doing his best within his Democrat rule book to clean up his city. I think he truly cares but does not have the will to speak the truth. These Dem mayors trying to work for their residents must be fed up with this situation Newsom has set up! They should do the right thing and start forcefully speaking out against this managed decline!
On a positive note, Georgetown a suburb of Austin looks nice!
Moved to Georgetown, TX in 2019 after 20 years in Auburn, CA and I’m a native Californian raised in the Bay Area who also lived in So. California. The day that Luis Bracamontes, an illegal alien shot and killed Sacramento detective Danny Oliver and Placer County deputy Michael Davis Jr. (10-24-2014) I started seriously researching other non sanctuary states and cities as destinations. Georgetown is a decent Texas small city experiencing growing pains but managing well. I knew not to move to one of the many Democrat counties here such as Travis County (Austin) and Williamson is on its northern border, still moderately conservative. I drove past the new GAF facility last Sunday, happy to see it! I’d move back to California if there was better governance but not because I don’t like it here. It’s just a different culture, ironically a bit more accepting. Not finding the stereotype of bigoted southerners, in fact people aren’t automatically categorized to the extent they are in most of CA. I check in with the California Globe regularly as I keep tabs on CA and always read your remarks with enjoyment! Katy Grimes is the only one doing what she does and she’s a treasure too!
Georgetown’s former Mayor Dale Ross was a RINO whose “100% renewable energy” scheme for the city caused electric bills to skyrocket and it almost bankrupted the city. While he was mayor, he reveled in obnoxiously trolling President Trump, boasting, “I make decisions based on facts… unlike the president,” opining that “It was a huge mistake to withdraw from the Paris climate accords…”
Hopefully Georgetown in better run now that traitorous RINO is gone?
(https://www.texaspolicy.com/texas-towns-environmental-narcissism-makes-al-gore-happy-while-sticking-its-citizens-with-the-bill/)
Last company out of California, please turn out the lights???
Anybody else think Newsom is getting a cut of the proceeds from the acquisition of these empty & vacated corporate offices and business parks by CCP-related entitles??? Or a finders fee???
How the hell else is he buying and paying for his mansions???
“Opportunity development or Market develoonent fee” is more likely than “finders fee”
Whatever, something stinks to high Heaven…
Hair-gel Hitler Newsom and the criminal Democrat thug mafia who control California don’t care how many businesses or legal residents they drive out of the state? They’re a super majority who can’t be voted out of office being experts at stealing elections with their various voter fraud scams, and they don’t worry about funding with their NGO/nonprofits and lucrative money laundering schemes in place?
Now why would a California solar company like GAF Energy move to a Texas city like Georgetown when oil-and-gas is one of the biggest industries in that part of Texas?
It appears that Georgetown was the first Texas city to operate entirely on renewable energy. Georgetown Mayor Dale Ross, a RINO Republican, became a prominent figure for climate change advocates when he shifted the city to 100% renewable energy. He was highlighted in Al Gore’s 2017 documentary “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.” The city’s transition began in 2015 and was fully implemented by April 2017 and involved long-term contracts for 144 megawatts of wind power and 154 megawatts of solar power. However, by 2019, electric rates had risen significantly. When natural gas prices dropped due to the shale boom, wholesale electricity prices in Texas fell, making the city’s fixed renewable energy contracts more expensive than market rates. As a result, Georgetown was forced to sell its surplus power at a loss, leading to multimillion-dollar budget deficits of $29.8 million between 2015 and 2018 alone.
Despite claiming 100% renewable status through a credit system based on annual energy purchases, the city still relied on natural gas power during periods of low wind and solar generation, undermining the reliability of its 100% renewable label. The financial strain led to reduced infrastructure spending and much higher electricity bills for residents, with some reports indicating annual costs increased by over $1,000 per household. Oops?
Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust (yeah)
Hey, I’m gonna get you, too
Another one bites the dust