> Corporations exist at the pleasure of government do they not?
No. “At the pleasure of” means total discretion. The government can’t just stop letting businesses incorporate because it doesn’t like how a county voted.
> Corporations exist at the pleasure of government do they not?
No. “At the pleasure of” means total discretion. The government can’t just stop letting businesses incorporate because it doesn’t like how a county voted.
There is no constitutional right to incorporate. Theoretically states could stop it at any time. Although they would still have to honor corporations formed in other states so it’s of limited effect.
> There is no constitutional right to incorporate
The Constitution directly grants very few individual rights. It’s mostly a document about what the government can’t do.
> Theoretically states could stop it at any time
Sure. That’s not “at the pleasure of.” Driver’s licenses are not issued “at the pleasure of” a state. Neither are marriage certificates. They’re issued as a matter of process that binds both the issuer and recipient to a predictable set of rules.
But there is a constitutional right to equal protection under the law. So while a state can say "everybody can incorporate" or "nobody can incorporate" without scrutiny, there are some pretty hash restrictions on rules that say some people can incorporate and others can't, especially if those restrictions look like they are written to be retaliatory against someone who pissed off the government.
>The government can’t just stop letting businesses incorporate because it doesn’t like how a county voted.
The government can revoke a corporation's charter at any time it desires to.
No it can't. It must comply with other constitutional obligations like the equal protection clause and 1A. Basically any action to revoke the charter of a single corporation (or group of corporations) for any reason other than violating pre-existing law is going to be very hard to justify in court. And threatening to leave the state is clearly not against the law (nor could it ever be because that law would violate 1A). Furthermore, even if a state is able to revoke a corporate charter, it can't stop it from re-incorporating in another state and continuing to do business in the original state under its new charter (commerce clause).
Why can't the government do that? Is it because the government created laws that limited its total discretion? That is besides my point. The people allow for corporations to exist is what I was getting at, and in the US businesses incorporate at the state level. So asking why California has a say in the structure of a company incorporated in it seemed odd to me on its face.
> Is it because the government created laws that limited its total discretion?
Yes. As you said, "the people allow for corporations to exist," and the same people created the government and allow it to exist. And when those people created that government they created rules that govern what laws the government is allowed to enact. Those rules are known as the constitution. And one of the first rules the people made when they created the government is the aptly named "first amendment." And that rule clearly states that the government can't take legal action against a citizen for saying something the government doesn't like. The CA government retaliating against OpenAI for its CEO threatening to leave the state would clearly violate this rule.
> that rule clearly states that the government can't take legal action against a citizen for saying something the government doesn't like. The CA government retaliating against OpenAI for its CEO threatening to leave the state would clearly violate this rule
What? Conspiracy to commit a crime is punishable. If you're credibly threatening to do something that could be unlawful, the state can pursue that. Altman, of all people, is not being punished for his speech. Nor has he any track record of free speech bona fides to stand on.
Moving a corporation out of state isn't a crime. Not sure what any sort of track record has to do with any of this.