Aerojet Rocketdyne killed 1,100 aerospace jobs in Sacramento and moved out of California.
Ron DeSantis just announced 500 aerospace jobs paying $98,000 a year are coming to Florida's Space Coast.
If you needed the clearest possible picture of why California is losing and Florida is winning, there it is.
Blue Origin Just Voted With Its Wallet
Jeff Bezos isn't making a political statement.
He's making a business decision – and that decision is $600 million worth of confidence in Florida over every other option available to him.
Blue Origin's Project Horizon will build an 830,000-square-foot upper stage manufacturing facility at Cape Canaveral's Rocket Park.
The new facility sits about nine miles from Launch Complex 36, where Blue Origin fires its New Glenn rockets into orbit.
That kind of integration – build it in the same state you launch it – is only possible because Florida spent more than a decade making it possible.
https://twitter.com/RubinReportShow/status/2057391950853287949?s=20
Since 2015, Blue Origin has grown to nearly 4,000 Florida employees and invested $2.3 billion across 500 Florida suppliers.
CEO Dave Limp called Project Horizon the latest and most ambitious chapter yet in that commitment.
Blue Origin is now the only company in the country that manufactures and launches rockets from the same state.
That didn't happen in California.
What California Did to Its Own Aerospace Industry
This isn't a new story.
California's aerospace employment in Los Angeles County alone dropped from 127,705 jobs in 1990 to 39,693 by 2003 – a collapse of nearly 70%.
The companies didn't disappear.
They left.
Rocketdyne – whose engines put Americans on the moon – saw its Canoga Park manufacturing plant close after decades of operation as costs and regulations made California untenable.
Firefly Aerospace started in Hawthorne, California, looked at what the state offered, and moved its headquarters to Texas.
Aerojet Rocketdyne closed its Rancho Cordova manufacturing plant – the facility whose engines powered NASA's Apollo program – and put 1,100 Sacramento workers out of a job.
California's payroll employment declined in 2025, with unemployment sitting above 5% for nearly two years.
https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/2045487647787753930?s=20
Florida hit 10,032,900 total jobs in April 2026 – a record.
Florida's labor force crossed 11,150,000 – another record.
Newsom's answer to all of this is tax credits and press releases.
DeSantis' answer is Blue Origin, $600 million, and 500 jobs paying nearly six figures.
This Is the Florida Model in Real Time
The Spaceport Improvement Program – a partnership between Space Florida and Florida's Department of Transportation – has invested $531 million in aerospace infrastructure since 2012.
That $531 million pulled in $3.3 billion in private industry investment.
A 6-to-1 return.
Space Florida chair Jeanette Nuñez put it plainly: investments like this are what positions Florida for leadership tomorrow.
Meanwhile, SpaceX is preparing what analysts say could be the largest IPO in history, targeting a $1.75 trillion valuation.
Bezos himself said last week that space is going to be a gigantic industry.
Both of America's dominant private space companies are anchored to Florida's launch infrastructure.
Neither one is building a $600 million factory in Sacramento.
The left spent decades making California so expensive and so regulated that the companies which built America's rockets quietly packed up and moved somewhere that wanted them.
Now those same politicians are watching Florida host the entire future of the American space economy – and still don't understand why.
DeSantis does.
Sources:
- Governor Ron DeSantis Press Office, "Governor Ron DeSantis Announces $600M Blue Origin Manufacturing Expansion, 500 High Wage Jobs," Office of the Governor of Florida, May 22, 2026.
- Juby Babu, "Blue Origin to expand Florida campus with new $600 million facility," Reuters, May 22, 2026.
- Shomik Sen Bhattacharjee, "Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin Expands Florida Rocket Facility Footprint," Benzinga, May 22, 2026.
- "Aerojet-Rocketdyne Pulling Manufacturing, 1,100 Jobs From Rancho Cordova," CBS13 Sacramento.
