Elon Musk is not alone in having Delaware in his sights

AT THE TURN of the 20th century the prime state to register businesses in America was New Jersey, home to America’s biggest trusts such as Standard Oil. Other states, including its diminutive next-door neighbour, coveted the spigot of easy money that came from business incorporation. “Little Delaware, gangrened with envy at the spectacle of the truck-patchers, clam-diggers and mosquito-wafters of New Jersey getting all the money in the country into her coffers, is determined to get her little tiny, sweet, round, baby hand into the grab-bag of sweet things,” the , a journal, wrote at the time.It succeeded. As New Jersey tightened its laws in response to the antitrust fervour of the 1910s, businesses realised the grass was greener across the Delaware river. The resulting corporate migration has turned Delaware into America’s incorporation capital. In 2022, 1.9m firms were incorporated in the state, almost two for every one of its citizens. More than two-thirds of the 500 list of America’s biggest firms by revenue are registered there (as are a few entities linked to ). In Wilmington, its biggest city, office towers stand as their faceless business domiciles. Business taxes and fees generated about $2bn for the state in 2022, a big part of its annual budget.