Chevron selling Bay Area headquarters, paying for employees relocate to Houston

Plenty of tech companies have moved their headquarters out of the Bay Area in recent years, from startups like Coinbase to industry pioneers like Hewlett Packard and Oracle. Elon Musk has been one particularly outspoken voice decrying California’s business conditions. Now, one of the East Bay’s legacy companies is joining the trend.

Chevron announced it is shuttering its San Ramon global headquarters and even encouraging some employees to move to Houston, the Wall Street Journal reported. The oil company will cover relocation costs for those voluntarily leaving for the Texas office, which has been growing and employs nearly 6,000 people. Meanwhile, the San Ramon office buildings have experienced dwindling numbers in recent years.

When Chevron vacates the 100-acre campus in 2023, freeing up prime real estate for the area’s growing life-sciences industry or developers looking to build apartments, it hopes to move into a smaller space in San Ramon, which will remain its headquarters, the Wall Street Journal said.

There are deep roots in California for Chevron going back to the late 1800s. While company leadership has pushed for a permanent move to Texas in the past, the oil company’s legacy in the state coupled with the location of its Richmond refinery in the East Bay has kept the company in California, sources told the Wall Street Journal.

"The current real estate market provides the opportunity to right-size our office space to meet the requirements of our headquarters-based employee population," a spokesperson told SFGATE. "The move is expected to occur during the...

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