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The John Batchelor Show

S8 Ep962: (6) Michael Toth explains how Texas created specialized business courts and maintained a light regulatory touch to attract major corporations. The state is successfully challenging Delaware's dominance as the primary legal domicile for prominent American

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2026

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

(6) Michael Toth explains how Texas created specialized business courts and maintained a light regulatory touch to attract major corporations. The state is successfully challenging Delaware's dominance as the primary legal domicile for prominent American companies.

Transcript

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0:00.0

I'm John Batchel with Michael Toth, my colleague.

0:18.2

He is the director of research at Civitas Institute,

0:26.3

the University of Texas at Austin, writing about before when the proposal to the shareholders was Exxon wanted to move, after 150 years in New Jersey, wanted to move to Texas. The recommendation

0:32.2

by a couple of professional firms who advise matters like this, corporate matters, especially to the

0:39.0

passive investors, BlackRock Vanguard State Street, big holders, was don't let them move there.

0:44.9

And why? And therein is a mystery. But let's get to what Texas has done to make itself attractive.

0:51.4

First of all, nobody with nine shares is going to show up and hold back a pay

0:55.8

package. That's what happened to Tesla, which has now moved to Texas, I believe.

1:00.9

However, Greg Abbott wanted to do more. What else did Texas do to prepare the grounds for

1:08.9

corporations to move there? Well, they did two things, right? I mean,

1:12.7

if you think about a corporation, it sort of has two sides to it. It's got the operations, right?

1:17.6

You know, where is the CEO going to work? Where are the employees going to work? Where are they making

1:21.5

their products? Where are they manufacturing their goods, et cetera, right? So that's sort of the operational

1:26.0

side of a business.

1:32.9

Texas has been recruiting companies to move their workforces, to move their operations to the state for decades now successfully because we have a light touch regulatory environment. We've got a

1:38.2

great tax environment. It's a great place to live. There's a second part of a corporation,

1:42.6

which is sort of the legal domicile,

1:44.6

the legal home, the legal registration of a company. And that Delaware, you know, basically has

1:51.6

continued to be, you know, the key player in, even after companies were moving their

1:57.6

operations to states like Texas, right? Well, that all started to change

2:02.0

when, as you pointed out a moment ago, John, there was a court case in Delaware involving a Tesla

2:07.8

shareholder against basically Elon Musk pay package. That case was filed in Delaware because Tesla at the

...

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