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Pittsburgh’s mayor has cold-called dozens of tech CEOs to get them to relocate their companies to his city.

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Pittsburgh’s new mayor is personally cold-calling upwards of 20 founders and CEOs across the country every week to check in on them, or to convince them to move to his city.

“Some people think it’s a prank call, but for others, it’s like, ‘wow, the mayor of Pittsburgh just called,'” said Corey O’Connor, who estimates he has called around 150 people since taking office in January. “If you’re already here, I ask, ‘How can we help you expand?’ If you’re not here, I ask ‘How do we get you to come to Pittsburgh?”

Pittsburgh has historically been known as “the Steel City” and is home to the Pittsburgh Steelers. O’Connor’s father worked as a steelworker before a long career in city politics. However, as O’Connor is quick to point out, there are no longer any steel mills within city limits, while the area is home to some of the most important startups in the U.S.

After predictions of its waning influence during the Covid era turned out to be wildly off, the Bay Area’s tech scene is now hotter than ever, largely thanks to AI. That has not stopped smaller cities like Miami and Austin from trying to grab VC dollars, especially as the cost of living in California skyrockets. Now, Pittsburgh would like to be the next Miami.

Its startups raised $1.48 billion in 2025, still a fraction of major tech hubs, but the region’s strongest venture capital year since 2019, according to PitchBook.

Standouts include Gecko Robotics, valued at $1.7 billion, which builds wall-climbing robots that inspect critical infrastructure, including power plants and industrial facilities. Abridge, valued at $5.3 billion, uses artificial intelligence to automatically generate medical documentation from doctor-patient conversations. It has emerged as one of the most closely watched AI companies in healthcare.

The most high-profile is Skild AI, which is developing foundation models for robotics, training AI systems that allow machines to operate more autonomously in real-world environments. The company raised $1.4 billion in a deal led by SoftBank Group and Nvidia in January, pushing its valuation to $15 billion, according to PitchBook.

“Our goal is to change the narrative,” O’Connor said, adding he will use every opportunity he can get to tout the city’s tech potential, especially as the spotlight will be on Pittsburgh as it prepares to host the NFL Draft in April.

Deep-seated roots in AI and robotics

The city’s AI and robotics credentials stretch back decades. In the 1960s, Carnegie Mellon professors began groundbreaking research in AI. In 1979, the first robotics institute at a U.S. university was started at CMU.

The challenge is keeping the most talented graduates from bolting to Silicon Valley.

“I’m constantly going to meet kids on campus,” O’Connor said.

Affordability is a key selling point. The median price for a single-family home in Pittsburgh and surrounding Allegheny County is 42.3 percent below the national average.

O’Connor is also trying to streamline the city’s permitting process to make it easier for tech companies to expand.

“We can get you a permit in four to five weeks, so you don’t have to wait through the government bureaucracy,” he said.

In January, Factify, a Tel Aviv-based digital document startup, said it plans to expand its presence in Pittsburgh and use the city as a major hub for customer engagement and operations.

Asked if he has successfully convinced any companies to move to Pittsburgh, O’Connor said not yet, but he is focused on the long game.

“They’re going to at least tell 10 friends that the mayor of Pittsburgh called,” he said. “That creates a buzz about the city.”




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Read the letter celebrity lawyer Alex Spiro wrote to Gavin Newsom, warning that his clients will ‘permanently relocate’ if California wealth tax passes

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A proposed billionaire tax in California has the wealthy threatening to flee, according to a letter written by power lawyer Alex Spiro to Gov. Gavin Newsom.

In a December 11 letter that was obtained by Business Insider, Spiro lays out his opposition to the proposed tax on behalf of his clients, whom he calls “California residents who would be subject to the proposed Billionaire Tax Act.”

“It will trigger an exodus of capital and innovation from California,” Spiro wrote. “Our clients have made clear they will permanently relocate if subjected to this tax.”

The measure proposes that California residents with assets exceeding $1 billion be subject to a one-time 5% tax on the value of their assets. If the proposal receives enough signatures, it will appear on the state ballot in November 2026. If passed, it would apply retroactively to all California residents as of January 1, 2026.

While Newsom has said he is against the tax and would “fight” it, he would not have the ability to veto it if it were to pass as a ballot measure.

Several wealthy Californians, including venture capitalist Peter Thiel and Google cofounder Larry Page, have considered shrinking their presence in California, according to a New York Times report. Representatives for Page and Thiel did not respond to Business Insider when asked if they were represented by Spiro.

Over the weekend, billionaire Palmer Luckey took to X to voice his opposition to the measure.

“I made my money from my first company, paid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes on it,” the Anduril cofounder wrote. “Now me and my cofounders have to somehow come up with billions of dollars in cash.”

While it’s not clear which clients the lawyer was referencing in his letter to Newsom, Spiro’s client roster in the past has included billionaires and A-listers. He has previously represented Kim Kardashian, Jay-Z, and Elon Musk.

Read the full letter below:

Re: Constitutional Concerns Regarding Proposed Billionaire Tax Act
Dear Governor Newsom:
I represent California residents who would be subject to the proposed Billionaire Tax Act if it qualifies for the November 2026 ballot. I write to urge you to work to prevent this initiative from moving forward. The Act has serious legal problems and would cause significant economic damage to California and the broader economy.
First, and most importantly, the Act would be unconstitutional. Although the Act purports to be a tax, it is in reality an uncompensated confiscation of property. The Act imposes a 5% levy on total accumulated wealth, including illiquid assets that generate no income. That is in substance a taking without just compensation. As the Supreme Court explained in Armstrong v. United States, the government cannot force “some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.” 364 U.S. 40, 49 (1960). The Act concentrates an extraordinary burden on a small group to solve a general revenue problem— exactly what the Constitution prohibits.
Second, for the people who relocate from California in 2026 before the November election, the Act would tax them after they have become citizens of other States and without any ability to vote on the measure. The Supreme Court has held that retroactive taxation cannot be “harsh and oppressive.” United States v. Carlton, 512 U.S. 26, 30 (1994). A 5% levy on total net worth imposed on former residents who departed before the law was even enacted clearly meets that definition.
Third, the Act’s unprecedented novelty makes it especially vulnerable to a legal challenge. California has never imposed a wealth tax, much less one that reaches former residents and that is targeted at a small group of citizens. The Supreme Court closely scrutinizes unprecedented exercises of government power precisely because they lack historical precedent. See Biden v. Nebraska, 600 U.S. 477, 505 (2023). In fact, it has not hesitated to invalidate the retroactive application of new taxes, even for far less extreme measures. See Blodgett v. Holden, 275 U.S. 142 (1927). There can be no doubt that the current Supreme Court would carefully evaluate a law so out of step with the American legal tradition.
From an economic perspective, the Act creates two serious problems. First, it will trigger an exodus of capital and innovation from California. Our clients have made clear they will permanently relocate if subjected to this tax. They are not alone. See California’s wealth-tax test: Have voters finally found a policy that the state’s inherent economic strengths can’t overcome?, Wash. Post (Nov. 17, 2025) (opinion) (describing the tax as “almost tailor-made to drive most Silicon Valley tech companies to Austin, Texas”). In other words, by passing this proposal California would exchange a one-time windfall for the permanent loss of billions in annual income taxes, capital gains taxes, property taxes, and economic activity. The state’s most economically productive residents would take their businesses, jobs, and charitable giving with them. Second, the Act will force destructive asset sales. Our clients hold equity stakes in operating businesses, venture capital funds, and real estate. Paying a 5% wealth tax would require massive forced liquidations, depressing asset values and triggering market instability that would harm ordinary investors whose retirement accounts hold these same investments.
Our clients are prepared to mount a vigorous constitutional challenge if this measure advances. Litigation would be protracted and expensive, and it would generate sustained negative attention to California’s business climate. The prudent course is to prevent this constitutionally defective measure from reaching the ballot. We respectfully ask that you discourage signature gathering, oppose qualification, and if necessary, campaign against passage.
Our clients prefer to remain in California and continue contributing to the state’s economy and civic life. But they will not remain if subjected to an unconstitutional confiscation of their wealth. We hope this can be resolved through political channels rather than through years of contentious litigation.
Respectfully,
Alex Spiro




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