Yamaha Leaving California for Business-Friendly, Crime-Free Kennesaw Georgia

Another large business is leaving California. Yamaha says “Sayonara” to Governor Gavin Newsom after 50 years in the once-Golden State.

“Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. (Tokyo: 7272) has decided to relocate its U.S. group company, Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A. (“YMUS”), currently located in Cypress, California, to Kennesaw, Georgia. This relocation will be happening, by function, over the period from the end of 2026 until the end of 2028,” Yamaha announced late February.

This is going to hurt Gov. Newsom who has had a lot of success chasing out hundreds to thousands of California businesses or subsidiaries, which fled to business-friendly red states including Jelly Belly, Chevron, X/Twitter, Space X, Oracle, Hewlett Packard, Charles Schwab, and Toyota Motor North America.

After 77 years in California, In-N-Out moved its headquarters to Tennessee. Valero is closing its refinery and Marathon Petroleum is warning they could leave as well.

These are just a few of the mega-businesses which left or are leaving California because of the state’s leftist/Marxist politics and hostile regulatory environment.

It’s not difficult to read between the lines why Yamaha is relocating to Georgia:

“Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd. is undertaking structural reforms aimed at improving the profitability of its U.S. operations in response to cost increases resulting from U.S. tariffs and changes in the market environment.

In addition to implementing cross-business cost reduction initiatives, the Company seeks over the medium to long term to build a profit structure that is not solely dependent on top-line growth, thereby transforming itself into a more resilient and robust organization capable of adapting to change.”

Yamaha Motor Co. notes that it moved its marine division to Kennesaw in 1999, and Motorsports Business were relocated to Kennesaw as well in 2019.

On an aside, Kennesaw, Georgia is a unique city – it requires heads of households to keep at least one weapon in the house, I reported in 2012. The residential burglary rate subsequently dropped 89 percent in Kennesaw, compared to the modest 10.4 percent drop in Georgia as a whole after Kennesaw passed this law in 1982.

So, Kennesaw is also safer than Cypress, California. Based on FBI crime data, relative to California, Cypress has a crime rate that is higher than 65% of California cities and towns of all sizes.

Sayonara Governor Gavin Newsom.