Bullish Texan Republicans Set Their Sights on the Stock Market
Lately, business in Texas has been riding high. Seismic shifts are underway in corporate America as more and more companies find themselves expanding into or relocating outright to business-friendly environments like the Lone Star State. Since 2018, an astonishing 209 firms have uprooted their headquarters, departing from traditional corporate strongholds such as New York and California in pursuit of a more accommodating environment.
Good news is now flowing in for Texas and its business-friendly state government, headed by Governor Greg Abbott. Elon Musk is in the process of moving his Tesla and SpaceX headquarters to Texas, which he sees as being more amenable to his interests, having already relocated X to Austin in 2024. Likewise, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has been eying a possible reincorporation in Texas, and Apple has recently announced plans for a new AI server factory in the state as part of its $500 billion investment plan.
This is part of a wider shift within American business – firms frustrated by burdensome taxes and regulations have sought to find places with more of a hands-off approach to regulation. Texas has come to epitomise recent Republican attempts to create corporate havens outside of the East-coast hubs of old.
In early 2025, the Texan Stock Exchange (TXSE) announced that it had filed paperwork for approval by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The group is backed by financial heavyweights BlackRock and Citadel Securities, among others, with $120 million in funding at this stage. The Dallas-based exchange would seek to challenge the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq, who have absorbed numerous smaller regional stock exchanges over the last few decades.
Dallas – affectionately dubbed ‘Y’all Street’ – has a red-hot financial sector that has grown to become the second largest in the United States by number of industry employers. The TXSE hopes to capitalise on this increasing attractiveness over the coastal centres.
Public companies have complained about high fees at the two dominant stock exchanges yet have so far paid up to access much-needed capital. America has lost half of its public companies since the 1990s due to many firms now choosing to stay private to avoid the burden of scrutiny and regulation. The TXSE stated their intention to relieve some of that burden in a recent press release: “corporate issuers and exchange-traded product sponsors are demanding more stability and predictability around listing standards and associated costs”, they wrote.
Although there lies a financial motivation under the opening of the Texan Stock Exchange and wider business policy, one cannot overlook the political dimension behind these moves.
The exchange has important political backing from local politicians, including Governor Abbott, who have pinned their politics on pro-business policies. Texan Republicans have positioned themselves as some of the most ‘corporate-friendly’ in the nation. They have already succeeded in advancing the typical Republican economic talking points, with Texas having among the lowest tax burdens in the country and no income tax.
Republicans in Austin have been aligning their policies with Trumpism over recent years and the backing of the TXSE is just the latest part of this. While its CEO, Jim Lee, has stated that the exchange would be apolitical, there has long been talk in financial circles about an “anti-woke” exchange launching in Texas.
The Nasdaq exchange had been embroiled in legal struggles over its decision to enforce diversity quotas on the boards of firms listed on the exchange. The move to expand diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in this manner was unpopular with listed firms and was blocked by the Fifth Circuit US Court of Appeals in late 2024.
In a surprising move, the TXSE has announced that it will set higher standards for firms looking to list themselves on its exchange. Thus, its appeal is centred around providing certainty and so-called ‘common sense’ rules – a typical Republican rejection of DEI that has found its way into other exchanges.
The backing of a new exchange based out of Dallas is a move that fits into a wider strategy to boost domestic American business. If the plan successfully attracts firms to list in Texas and draws them away from the dominant East-Coast listings, it could help to expand Republican views on DEI. The New York State Government has long taken the NYSE and Nasdaq – the backbone of its financial centre – for granted while they, in turn, have taken firms with ambitions of going public for granted too. America’s financial landscape is ripe for remaking, the TXSE could be the latest way of consolidating economic power in the Lone Star State.
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