Gavin Newsom — the hair apparent to the throne of America’s worst-run state — just awarded a $19 million taxpayer-funded contract to run a marketing campaign telling everyone how great California is. The campaign launched April 6th and runs through December. Its goal? To “dispel myths” about California’s business climate and “inspire trust and enthusiasm” among investors and business leaders.
Yeah, because what Chevron really needed before they packed up and moved to Houston was a slick Instagram ad from Sacramento. That would’ve changed everything.
Here’s the thing about California that no amount of paid influencer content can fix: companies are leaving so fast that tracking the exodus has become its own cottage industry. Chevron, Tesla, SpaceX, Oracle, Charles Schwab, Public Storage — gone. All of them. Texas and Florida rolled out the welcome mat, and California’s biggest employers sprinted across it like their hair was on fire. (Which, given Newsom’s track record with actual fires, is not entirely a figure of speech.)
The state lost 299,077 residents between July 2024 and July 2025. That’s not a migration — that’s an evacuation. But sure, Gavin, blow $14 million on TV commercials and paid social media ads. That’ll bring ’em back.
Here’s the part that should make every California taxpayer want to drive to Sacramento with a pitchfork: Newsom is running a $3 billion deficit. Three billion. With a B. And his solution to the budget crisis is to light $19 million on fire producing glossy propaganda about how California is actually a “world-class place for business investment, relocation, and expansion.”
Pop quiz: If California is such a world-class place for business, why do you need to spend $19 million convincing people of that? Assemblywoman Kate Sanchez nailed it when she said, “If California were actually thriving, he wouldn’t need $19 million of your taxpayer money to convince people.” Bingo.
But wait — it gets better. Newsom’s office made a big point of announcing that Gavin himself will NOT appear in the ads. “The campaign will tell the California story, not the Gavin Newsom story,” a spokesperson said.
Well no kidding. If Newsom’s face showed up in a “Come to California!” commercial, it would work about as well as putting a photo of the Titanic on a cruise ship brochure. The guy’s approval ratings are somewhere between root canal and jury duty. Even his own PR team knows he’s toxic.
And let’s talk about what $19 million could actually do in California, since we’re playing with taxpayer money here. You know what costs less than $19 million? Testing the water pressure in fire hydrants that didn’t work when Los Angeles burned down. Hiring actual cops in San Francisco, where shoplifters walk out of stores with armfuls of merchandise like they’re shopping at Costco. Filling a pothole. Literally anything useful.
But no. We’re getting a nine-month branding campaign. Nine months! The contract conveniently runs through December 2026 — right when Newsom’s final term as governor ends. So taxpayers are footing the bill for what is essentially a Gavin Newsom farewell tour disguised as economic development. He’s not promoting California. He’s building his résumé for whatever he’s running for next. (We all know it’s the presidency. He denies it. Nobody believes him.)
Meanwhile, Fox News is reporting that the billionaire exodus from California is about to accelerate even further in 2026 because Sacramento is cooking up TWO new tax proposals that will squeeze whatever wealthy residents haven’t already fled. So the state’s strategy is: raise taxes to drive out more businesses, then spend money advertising to businesses that the state is great for business.
This is like setting your house on fire, calling the fire department, and then yelling at them for getting your carpet wet.
Elon Musk moved Tesla AND SpaceX out of California. He literally said a transgender law was “the final straw.” You think a $19 million ad campaign featuring paid influencers is going to convince the world’s richest man to come back? “Oh wow, I saw a really compelling TikTok from a Sacramento content creator — better move my rocket company back to the state that taxed me into oblivion and told my employees which bathroom to use!”
Newsom’s spokesperson actually said — and we’re not making this up — that “California and its business climate have been falsely and maliciously maligned for years.” Falsely maligned! Chevron didn’t leave because of misinformation, Gavin. They left because you made it impossible to do business there. Oracle didn’t pack up because of bad PR. They left because your regulations read like the Communist Manifesto with a surfer accent.
Every dollar of that $19 million is coming out of the pockets of the Californians who are still stuck there — the ones who can’t afford to leave, who are watching their neighborhoods deteriorate while their governor plays Mad Men with their tax money.
If Gavin Newsom wants to know why companies keep leaving California, he doesn’t need a $19 million marketing campaign. He needs a mirror.