Mayor Buckhorn to PayPal: Come to Tampa

TAMPA, Fla. - Backlash against North Carolina's new non-discrimination law is growing and Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn is using that to his advantage.

A day after PayPal announced it would be withdrawing plans of a new operation center in Charlotte, the mayor tweets, "Tampa is, and always will be, proud of our diverse community. We invite PayPal to open their global ops here."

PayPal's plans would bring 400 jobs and $3.6 million investment to Charlotte, but the company backed down in lieu of the passing of House Bill 2. It's a non-discrimination law that leaves out protections for the LGBT community and requires transgender people to use public bathrooms assigned to their biological sex, rather than the sex they identify with.

According to PayPal President and CEO Dan Schulman, "The legislation invalidates protections of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender citizens and deny these members of our community equal rights under the law."

The news comes days after Braeburn Pharmaceuticals announced it was reevaluating plans for a $25 million expansion in Durham and Google Ventures announcing it would no longer invest money in the state.

"I am deeply concerned that we may see more of the kinds of announcement that we saw this morning," Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberta said.

Earlier this week the NBA released a statement saying they're not sure if North Carolina is the best place to host the 2017 All-Star game. That statement was followed by a number of other major companies expressing similar concerns about HB2. Google, Facebook, American Airlines, IBM, Apple are all speaking out against the new legislation.