Samsung’s US HQ Lasted Eight Months in New Jersey Before Texas Called

Samsung’s U.S. headquarters is moving from New Jersey to Plano, Texas, eight months after the company hosted a grand opening in Englewood Cliffs. Acting Governor Tahesha Way spoke at the September 2025 ceremony. Senator Andy Kim invoked his family’s four decades in the state. Samsung’s CEO called it the start of a new era. About 1,000 employees have until June 12 to say whether they’ll follow the move to Texas.

Samsung confirmed on June 1 that it’s relocating its headquarters to its existing Plano campus, completing the transition by the end of the year and building on what the company describes as a 30-year Texas presence.

Eight Months at 700 Sylvan Ave.

The building at 700 Sylvan Ave. was a visible upgrade from Samsung’s previous New Jersey life. The 321,000-square-foot campus in Englewood Cliffs consolidated three dispersed offices, including its longtime home at 65 Challenger Road in Ridgefield Park, where the company had operated for more than three decades. Staff moved in on July 7, 2025. The formal ribbon-cutting came September 22.

Englewood Cliffs had actively competed for this tenant. Samsung weighed the borough against Jersey City and Hoboken before choosing. Local officials approved building permits in under a week, added a dedicated bus stop for employees, and offered tax abatements under the town’s value improvement ordinance for cosmetic and interior upgrades. The building was the former Unilever U.S. headquarters; Unilever had vacated for Hoboken, and Englewood Cliffs had been searching for a replacement. Samsung filled the gap and brought a grand ceremony with it.

This is more than just a headquarters. It’s an anchor that boosts our local economy, stabilizes our tax base, creates employment opportunities for residents right here in our borough.

Intashan Chowdhury, the Englewood Cliffs borough administrator, said that at the September 22 opening, attended by Acting Gov. Tahesha Way, Sen. Andy Kim, Congressman Josh Gottheimer, Rep. Rob Menendez, and Assemblywoman Ellen Park. Councilman Tim Koutroubas told the crowd: “Our proximity to New York City is unmatched. This prime land is ideal for corporations.” Samsung CEO and President Yoonie Joung said the campus “blends innovation, sustainability and community engagement” for the next era, noting Samsung had been proud to call New Jersey home for 40 years, with more than 460,000 square feet managed across five locations in the state.

Among the site’s features is the Samsung Connected Experience Center at 700 Sylvan Ave., a product showroom open to business visitors on weekdays. Eight months after the ribbon was cut, Samsung announced it was moving to Texas. Englewood Cliffs now needs a replacement tenant for the same address for the second time in two years.

Samsung’s Texas Roots, Thirty Years in the Making

Samsung has manufactured semiconductors in Texas since 1996, when it opened its first fabrication plant in Austin. Samsung’s April 2024 CHIPS Act announcement noted that more than $18 billion had gone into those Austin facilities over the decades, making the campus one of the largest single foreign direct investments in American history. Texas is the only location outside South Korea where Samsung manufactures chips.

In November 2021, Samsung announced a new foundry in Taylor, Texas, about 35 miles north of Austin, with an initial commitment of $17 billion. Federal and state support expanded the project considerably. The U.S. Department of Commerce signed preliminary terms for Samsung to receive funding under the CHIPS and Science Act (CHIPS, the 2022 law to restore domestic semiconductor production), and Texas passed its own Texas CHIPS Act in 2023, establishing the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund (TSIF, a state-level grant program for chip manufacturers) with roughly $948 million appropriated. Total expected Samsung investment in Texas grew past $40 billion. The Taylor facility is designed to produce 4nm and 2nm logic chips alongside advanced packaging for AI memory systems, and it’s on track to begin operations by the end of this year.

• $18 billion+: Invested in Samsung’s Austin semiconductor campus since 1996
• $6.4 billion: Federal direct funding per the CHIPS and Science Act preliminary terms announced in April 2024
• $250 million: Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund grant awarded by Governor Greg Abbott’s office to Samsung Austin Semiconductor in 2025, for the Taylor facility
• 21,500+: Jobs expected from Samsung’s Texas investment, per federal estimates at the CHIPS Act announcement

Plano sits about 200 miles north of Taylor. The campus there already hosts Samsung’s U.S. mobile and network business operations, with more than 1,000 regional employees in place before the headquarters announcement. Samsung’s June 1 statement called the move a matter of sharpening “alignment across teams and offices” and building on the company’s existing Texas infrastructure. Every major Samsung investment in the United States is in Texas.

The Employees’ Choice

Samsung told Englewood Cliffs employees about the Texas move on May 29. The official announcement followed June 1. Employees have until June 12 to indicate their relocation interest; by June 30, the company says it will provide each person with detailed information about what the transition means for their specific role.

A small number of workers will remain in New Jersey to handle local operations. The others are being asked to consider Plano, a city in Collin County north of Dallas where the cost of living runs considerably below the New York metropolitan area. The financial arithmetic may favor the move. The personal arithmetic is harder: dual-income households, school-age children, aging parents, and careers built near one of the world’s largest job markets don’t recalculate easily around a corporate relocation timeline set by an announcement.

Companies that have made comparable interstate headquarters moves offer mixed precedent. Oracle’s 2020 shift from Redwood City, California to Austin and Tesla’s relocation from Palo Alto to Texas were high-profile, but both involved workforces with different demographic profiles than Samsung’s consumer electronics and network operations staff in New Jersey. Samsung has not disclosed what relocation packages it is offering to employees who agree to transfer.

Samsung hasn’t said how many positions will be eliminated rather than offered for relocation. Its statement said the company would be “optimizing parts of the organization to ensure our roles and functions align to key business priorities.” Samsung added: “We recognize such adjustments will have an impact on our people, and we will be providing support to those affected.” The company confirmed that layoffs are expected as part of the reorganization tied to the move.

Samsung’s previous U.S. headquarters move, from its longtime home in Ridgefield Park to Englewood Cliffs in 2025, was a relocation within New Jersey’s Bergen County. This one crosses the Mississippi.

New Jersey’s Fortune 500 Problem

New Jersey’s business community has tracked the state’s Fortune 500 footprint shrinking for years. The New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA), the state’s largest business lobby, counts Fortune 500 company headquarters in New Jersey falling from 22 in 2018 to 15 in 2025. Samsung’s exit adds a well-known name to a list that has been getting shorter steadily.

“Today’s announcement from Samsung less than a year after it opened its new New Jersey headquarters, and on the heels of Exxon’s recent corporate departure … is not surprising, but it is no less sad,” said Michele Siekerka, NJBIA president and CEO. “These are the results of decades of anti-business policies in the state. These are not accidents, nor are they coincidences.” ExxonMobil recently moved its legal domicile from New Jersey to Texas, ending an association with the state that stretched nearly 150 years.

Assemblyman John Azzariti, a Republican representing New Jersey’s 39th District, listed other recent departures: Mercedes-Benz USA, Honeywell, Hertz, Sealed Air. Critics of the state’s business environment point frequently to its 11.5% corporate income tax rate, which the NJBIA describes as the highest in the country. “Texas didn’t win Samsung by accident,” Azzariti told the NJBIZ news service. “They won because they have spent years creating an environment where businesses want to invest, grow and create jobs. Meanwhile, New Jersey continues to raise costs, add regulations, and send the message that employers are little more than a revenue source for government.”

New Jersey has used targeted incentive programs to help retain specific employers, and some have worked. Business groups argue those deals don’t address the underlying structural economics that drive headquarters decisions. Governor Mikie Sherrill’s administration has signaled a desire to narrow the competitive gap, and the NJBIA has called on her office to cut costs, streamline permitting, and offer broader tax relief. Englewood Cliffs mayor Mark Park said separately that his borough’s fundamentals remain strong, and that the next tenant at 700 Sylvan Ave. will find the same fast permitting and tax flexibility Samsung did.

Plano’s Corporate Address

Samsung’s Legacy Central campus in Plano opened in 2018 with 216,000 square feet. Expansions in 2020 and 2023 grew it past 300,000 square feet. Commercial real estate reporting puts Samsung’s total Legacy Central presence at more than 400,000 square feet across multiple buildings in the development, owned by Regent Properties and reportedly near full occupancy before the headquarters designation was announced.

Samsung hasn’t confirmed whether it will expand that campus further to accommodate the incoming executive functions and the employees it hopes to attract from New Jersey, or designate a separate location in the city. The headquarters title and the year-end completion target are settled; the specific Plano address is still being determined.

Plano has pulled in several major corporate headquarters over the past two years. Among those who have designated or announced headquarters in the city:

• AT&T, which secured a $20 million Plano incentive deal for its global headquarters designation
• KFC’s U.S. headquarters, announced by parent company Yum Brands
• Sally Beauty Holdings
• Tech Mahindra

Samsung’s existing campus means no incentive deal is required from the city. The real estate is built, the employees are already there, and the headquarters designation lands on top of an operation that has been growing in Plano since 2018. Whether most of the Englewood Cliffs workforce follows depends on what employees tell the company by June 12.