[swyx]

> threatening economic damage to California.

whoa there. corporations have the right to move to the best location for them. California does not have the eternal right to OpenAI's taxes and employee base. think about what you're implicitly assuming here. if one company simply leaving causes concerning "damage" then perhaps it is the government that is the problem, not the corporation driving economic growth.

[dragonwriter]

Corporations are applications of government power and have no natural rights, their legal rights are at best proxies for the rights of natural persons with some interest in them, and at worst a fiction which serves to limit the rights of natural persons.

Also, having a right to do something does not contradict a description of you leveraging power by using a threat of doing it, in the first place.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Corporations are applications of government power and have no natural rights

Sure. Whatever. The people who own and work at OpenAI have no obligation to remain in California.

(I’d also argue that global norms are currently walking back from the notion of natural rights pretty much everywhere except for in some parts of Europe. The concept doesn’t work without an appeal to divinity.)

[MichaelZuo]

The legal entity is what owns the IP, contracts, obligations, property, etc… so even if 100% of the current employees and owners moved, their collective worth and prospects would be significantly reduced if the legal entity doesn’t also come along.

[dmitrygr]

> California does not have the eternal right to OpenAI's taxes and employee base

ehh....

https://www.greenbacktaxservices.com/blog/california-exit-ta...

Skip to the "What California Can Still Tax After You Leave" section

If they do this to people, i am sure they can to corps too

[jayd16]

Maybe its the insane wealth gap that's the problem...

[rxyz]

Corporations used to not have that much political power

[krapp]

Corporations used to have their own militaries, they colonized entire nations and owned people. They underwrote kings and empires.

[int_19h]

While this is all true, they were limited to targeting smaller, less economically developed nations, where a private army was sufficient.

Today, though, one can reasonably argue that megacorps have managed to successfully capture the most powerful government on Earth.

[platevoltage]

Yeah. The East India Company was famously powerless.