When the old big box retailer Bed Bath & Beyond went belly up, its brand assets were acquired by Overstock.com, which renamed itself Bed Bath & Beyond and is now preparing to bring the brand back with retail stores. They plan to be everywhere… except California. The company’s executive chairman Marcus Lemonis says the regulatory and tax environment there just makes it too hard to do business – for which Governor Newsom sarcastically responded:

Lemonis responded:

It’s a very simple model for me. As a capitalist myself, I want to do business in all 50 states, and I want to do business with all people of all political parties. That’s part of being a capitalist. But what I don’t want to do is put my shareholders, my employees, and myself in a situation where we’re regulated to a zero, and we don’t want to spend $100 million coming into California and then find out that the state’s going to take it all and waste it all.