Daily Wire to Leave Los Angeles, Moving Headquarters to Nashville

Ben Shapiro speaks onstage during Politicon 2018 at Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles on Oct. 21, 2018. Rich Polk/Getty Images for Politicon

The Daily Wire, the conservative media outlet founded by Ben Shapiro, Jeremy Boreing, and Caleb Robinson, announced plans to move its headquarters from Los Angeles to Nashville.

Shapiro, who serves as editor emeritus, shared the news in a tweet on Sept. 15.

“We’ve been asked over and over and over again when we would leave California. The answer: now. See you in Nashville, gang!” Shapiro wrote.

The company is currently headquartered in Sherman Oaks, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles.

Shapiro noted “terrible governance” as a factor driving the decision, while suggesting more widespread dissatisfaction with the political environment among other business leaders.

“I’ve lived my entire life in California. Within weeks, we'll be taking our 75 jobs and leaving. We’re not the first. And we certainly won’t be the last. Terrible governance has consequences,” he wrote in a separate tweet.

Boreing, who is co-CEO, told Deadline in an interview that the decision to relocate operations to Nashville was fueled by deteriorating quality of life in Los Angeles, including costly housing and homelessness.

According to a June report from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which measured the state of homelessness in January, the number of homeless in the city of Los Angeles grew by 16.1 percent from last year’s point-in-time count. Los Angeles Police Department crime statistics (pdf) show that, while citywide property crimes have fallen by 9.5 percent in the year-to-date period compared to the same period in 2019, the number of murders has spiked by 14.7 percent, while the number of shootings has gone up by 12.9 percent.

Like Shapiro, Boreing expressed dissatisfaction with local governance.

“The dream of California and the weather were enough to draw us all here and keep us here, even when it was hard,” he told Deadline. “But it’s hubris to think you can keep making it worse and worse for people and that somehow the idea of temperate winters will be enough to make them stay forever.”

He said Daily Wire executives mulled setting up shop in Texas, but ultimately settled on Nashville because they expect to find a substantial talent pool of “creative talent” for potential new hires.

Boreing said staff have until Oct. 1 to decide whether to move to Nashville, adding that around 80 percent are expected to join the company in relocating.