Texas has edged out California for the second straight year as home to more Fortune 500 companies than any other state.
In total, 55 Fortune 500 corporations have decided to set up shop in the Lone Star State, compared to 53 in rival California.
Gov. Abbott declared in a statement received by The Dallas Express, “Texas is the headquarters of headquarters.”
“With our strong and growing workforce and welcoming business climate, Texas is where businesses find the freedom to flourish and people find opportunities to prosper,” he continued.
“‘Made in Texas’ is already a powerful global brand. With significant, continuing investments in education and training, workforce development, infrastructure and innovation, we are building an even brighter Texas of tomorrow for generations to come,” Abbott concluded.
Fortune explained in a press release, “As the headquarters of 55 Fortune 500 companies, Texas holds onto its spot as home to the most Fortune 500 companies for its second year. California, at No.2 with 53 companies, bumped New York to No.3 with 50.”
New York City held on as the top city with the most Fortune 500 companies (40), but Houston comfortably sat at number two with a total of 22 headquarters. Atlanta came in third with 15, followed by Chicago (13) and Dallas (11).
Altogether, the Southern states demonstrated a strong showing for industry headquarters, reflecting the shifting internal population migratory patterns, as reported by The Dallas Express.
As noted, Dallas is home to 11 Fortune 500 company headquarters. Of these, the biggest is AT&T, with a market value of nearly $140 billion and more than 160,000 employees.
Other major corporations headquartered in Dallas include Energy Transfer, HF Sinclair, CBRE Group, Southwest Airlines, Builders FirstSource, Texas Instruments, Tenet Healthcare, Jacobs Solutions, AECOM, and EnLink Midstream.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson has touted the city’s status as an economic center for Texas and the country, noting that “the Dallas market added 400,000 new jobs in the last three years, which is more than any other market in the country.”
However, economic growth could be significantly higher in Dallas if the City could find a way to effectively address the issues that tend to drive businesses away, such as the continuing homelessness and vagrancy crisis, the permitting backlog that slows new construction, and violent crime that plagues the area, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.