Texas tells cargo ships to join Tesla and ‘escape California’

A month after Texas poached Tesla Inc.’s headquarters from California, it’s now trying to attract freight carriers dealing with near-record backlogs at the U.S.’s largest ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched the ‘Escape California’ Twitter campaign Monday with a 30-second video telling carriers that in less than two weeks, they can re-route cargo to “one of the 24/7 functioning Texas cargo ports.”

“Choose a state that doesn’t see inflation and America’s supply-chain backlog as a good thing,” the promotional video says. “Escape California, everyone is doing it.”

The seventh-busiest maritime hub in the country, the port of Houston is the largest on the Gulf Coast. It moved about 320,000 containers in August—about one-third the number handled by Los Angeles in that month. 

Abbott isn’t the first Republican governor to try to attract business amid the California logjams. Last month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis also pitched the state’s 15 seaports to help alleviate bottlenecks, saying local ports “are used to operating around the clock” during a visit to the state’s busiest Port of Jacksonville.