During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of Americans packed up their belongings and moved somewhere else. Among them were a host of celebrities. One notable destination was Texas, a state not previously heavily associated with the glitz and glam lifestyle of the rich and famous. The reasons actors, influencers, and billionaires chose the Lone Star State vary, with some choosing the proudly conservative state for offering what California didn’t.
For businesspeople, the allure of Texas lies in its low tax burden and other benefits. Others were attracted to the state’s emphasis on personal freedoms, which became a hot topic amid the pandemic’s restrictions. Other celebrities, on the other hand, used the pandemic as an opportunity to move closer to their roots and families. In Dennis Quaid’s view, the movement had the potential to shake up Hollywood to its core.
“We want to make Texas the film capital of the world. That’s what Texas used to really have — a great film incentive program and a great film crew base. About nine or 10 years ago, I made some great movies there and [I] love working there,” “The Parent Trap” actor, a native of Houston, Texas, said in a 2023 interview with Fox News. A vast number of films are already shot in places other than California as it is. “It’s cheaper,” he argued. Whether his vision will become a reality remains to be seen, but there is no doubt that plenty of celebrities have moved out of Hollywood in favor of Texas.
Joe Rogan chose Texas amid its loose COVID-19 response
Joe Rogan moved to the Lone Star State in 2020 after becoming dissatisfied with California’s strict COVID-19 restrictions. He wanted to live somewhere with a more lax attitude toward the deadly virus. After some research, he learned Texas might just be the place, so he took a trip with his family to check it out in May 2020. “I went to a restaurant with my kids, and they were like, ‘We don’t have to wear a mask? … We can eat at a restaurant?'” he explained on “The Joe Rogan Experience” in 2024.
Their experience only improved from there. “Then we went to the lake, and people are playing music and jumping in the water, and they were like, ‘We want to live here!'” he added. Rogan’s mind was made up. “That was it. Two months later, I lived here,” he said. He chose Austin as his new home, purchasing a mansion worth a whopping $14.4 million to serve as his family’s new haven and the headquarters of his popular — and controversial — podcast.
The irony of Rogan choosing Texas’ most liberal city to call home wasn’t lost on us. In fact, many of the friends who followed him to the Texas capital were disappointed. “It is not the ‘live music capital of America,’ it’s three heroin addicts busking with guitars. There is zero talent here in any capacity,” comedian Tim Dillon said on the “Good For You Podcast with Whitney Cummings” in 2024.
Matthew McConaughey moved to Texas for his career
Matthew McConaughey may have head-turning political aspirations, but his reasons for relocating his family to Austin, Texas, in 2014 weren’t political like Joe Rogan’s. McConaughey’s motivations for leaving Los Angeles were actually professional, as strange as that might sound. After being shot to stardom for his successful roles in early ’00s rom-coms like “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” and “The Wedding Planner,” McConaughey felt the typecast was hurting his chances of advancing in his career.
“I was so strong in that lane that anything outside of that lane, dramas and stuff that I wanted to do, were like, no, no, no, no, no McConaughey. Hollywood said no, no, no, no, you should stay there, stay there,” he said on the “Good Trouble” podcast in 2024. He needed to take a break and start rejecting roles. “I moved down to the ranch in Texas,” he explained. “I went down there and I made a pact with my wife [model and actress Camila Alves McConaughey] and said, ‘I’m not going back to work unless I get offered roles I want to do.'”
When McConaughey and Alves left Hollywood behind, they were going home in a way. For the “Mud” star, a proud Texan born and raised, that was a literal truth. For Alves, the culture felt similar to her upbringing in rural Brazil. “I discovered a lot of similarities in terms of what families practice here, especially going to church on Sundays, and being very into the outdoors,” she told Fox News.
Elon Musk moved himself and his businesses to Texas
Elon Musk has no connection to Texas at all, but, like Joe Rogan, he grew tired of California’s policies. The COVID-19 restrictions gave him the final push to leave the Golden State behind and relocate to, yes, Austin in 2020. He didn’t go alone: He took his billion-dollar businesses with him. He announced he was moving the Tesla headquarters to the Texas capital in 2021, after showing discontent with the California restrictions that forced Tesla to halt production.
In his view, the state’s policies were starting to hurt its economy. “If a team is winning for too long, they tend to get complacent,” Musk said at a Wall Street Journal event in 2020, according to The Verge. “California has been winning for a long time, and I think they’re taking it for granted.” With no corporate or personal income tax and low business taxes in general, Texas prides itself on being a business-friendly state. In 2024, Musk announced he would also move the X and SpaceX headquarters to Austin.
This time, Musk’s motives were political rather than economic. He announced his decision after Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law that prevents teachers from notifying families about students’ gender identity changes. “This is the final straw,” he wrote on X. “Because of this law and the many others that preceded it, attacking both families and companies, SpaceX will now move its HQ from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas.”
James Marsden moved to Austin during the COVID-19 pandemic
James Marsden also jumped on the Texas bandwagon during the COVID-19 pandemic. In mid-2020, he decided his new hometown would be — you guessed it — Austin, a place he had been familiar with for at least two decades and still had friends in. With the shakeup caused by the health crisis, Marsden saw an opportunity to move closer to home. “I grew up in Oklahoma, all my family is still there,” he said on “Live with Kelly and Ryan” in December 2020. “I’m much closer to my mom and everybody.”
While proximity to his roots played a big role, Marsden also liked Austin’s unique combination of simplicity and cultural opportunities. “It still got that small-town feel to it, but it’s definitely booming at the moment,” he said. The “Westworld” star proved he didn’t regret the move one bit when he purchased a $1.84 million five-bedroom home in January 2022. Despite being from the neighboring state, Marsden has roots in Texas.
In a March episode of National Geographic’s “No Taste Like Home With Antoni Porowski,” he traced his family’s history from Bavaria, Germany, through different parts of Texas. Maybe he felt an ancestral pull toward the Lone Star State. He obviously wasn’t the only celebrity to feel it, but he claims he started the trend. “When there’s a big, important decision to be made for Elon [Musk] and all the rest of Hollywood, they kind of check in to see what I’m doing first,” he joked on “Live.”
Glen Powell wanted to be close to family
Like Matthew McConaughey, Glen Powell returned home. In 2024, he moved back not only to his home state but to his hometown. The only Austinite on the list, the “Hit Man” actor was born in the Texas capital city, where he lived all the way up to college. He was studying radio-television-film at the University of Texas at Austin when he moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting at age 19. Thanks to his acting success, he can now move back. “[The benefit of] getting to this point in Hollywood is that I can now leave Hollywood,” he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2024. “It’s like I’ve earned the ability to go back to my family.”
Besides being close to his family and roots, Powell wanted to leave Hollywood’s celebrity-obsessed environment behind. “The thing that makes me feel in conflict with some parts of this moment is that I like choosing when I’m out in front,” he said. The ubiquity of paparazzi and photographers in general takes a toll. “I think you get enough of those that you just want to bring your family as close as possible — or run to them,” he explained.
Moving back to Austin has another perk: It allows him to devote more time — and space — to another of his passions. “My house in Austin, pretty much every square foot is designed around how to maximize Texas football-watching parties and college football game days,” the Texas Longhorns fan told People in April.
