Elon Musk’s Ties to Texas Republicans Go Much Deeper Than the Midterms

Elon Musk has enjoyed a cozy relationship with top Texas brass for years. And in recent weeks, as the midterm elections approach and Musk’s financial support of the Texas GOP has become virtually limitless, that relationship has gone under the microscope.While polls suggest that a number of races in deep-red Texas are looking dizzyingly close, Federal Election Commission filings show that Musk has given at least $158 million to super PACs supporting Texas attorney general Ken Paxton’s bid for Senate, and last week Musk explicitly endorsed him in a post on X. “The fate of Texas and America is at stake,” Musk wrote. “Vote for @KenPaxtonTX today.”Newly released state campaign filings also show that Musk also donated $5,000,000 to Governor Greg Abbott’s bid for reelection, making him his single largest donor.Abbott’s relationship with Musk has been the subject of public interest for years. State representative Gina Hinojosa, who is running against Abbott, recently sued to view, in full, 1,400 pages of the governor’s correspondences with Musk. Abbott has been trying to block their release for some time; his office has described the communications as too “intimate and embarrassing” to be made public. This week, a judge ruled that Abbott had illegally “obstructed and continues to obstruct” Hinojosa’s right to inspect the documents in her capacity as a state lawmaker and ordered their release to her. Abbott has since appealed; a hearing is scheduled for November 2, one day before the election.State representative James Talarico, who is running against Paxton for Senate, has campaigned on his opponents’ checkered past. As attorney general, Paxton has been indicted on felony securities fraud charges (which he settled without a plea), was accused by whistleblowers of using his office to benefit the financial interests of a political donor, and was impeached (though later acquitted).And at a campaign event on Monday in El Paso, Talarico raised questions about Paxton and Musk’s relationship. “Ken Paxton has the ultimate megadonor,” Talarico said. “Elon Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat.”But Musk’s business dealings in Texas politics didn’t start with the midterms. For years, he has enjoyed lucrative state contacts, tax breaks, and allyship from Texas leaders. In 2021, Musk moved Tesla’s corporate headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, and SpaceX’s headquarters from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas, in 2024.Musk’s initial relocation to Texas coincided with a shift in operations inside the Texas Attorney General’s office. In the past, lawyers would prepare notices of investigation (administrative subpoenas known as CIDs) based on public complaints or evidence collected, then send them up the chain for approval.Sources tell WIRED that from about 2021 onward, lawyers were increasingly instructed by Texas’ executive branch—which included Paxton and Abbott—who and what they were going to investigate, despite internal efforts to steer resources toward more “legitimate” issues. For example, in 2022, eyebrows were raised internally when, the same day Musk sent a letter to Twitter threatening to abandon a $44 billion acquisition agreement over Twitter’s alleged misrepresentation of the number of bots on the platform, Paxton’s office issued a statement asserting that his office would be launching its own investigation against Twitter.A year later, Paxton once again appeared to use his office to benefit Musk. Musk sued the progressive watchdog Media Matters for defamation after it published an investigation showing that X, under Musk’s ownership, had been placing ads from major brands next to white-nationalist content. Moments after he filed his suit, Paxton’s office announced its own investigation into Media Matters. (Media Matters sued Paxton, asserting that his investigation was brought out of retaliation for its coverage of Musk and X.) In 2024, after Musk filed an antitrust lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers and major brands, accusing them of a conspiracy to pull revenue from X, Paxton announced his own investigation into the organization, accusing them of a “potential anticompetitive scheme to withhold advertising dollars from certain social media platforms.” (He did not mention X by name.)And when the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section wrote a letter to Musk warning that his America PAC million-dollar sweepstakes program ahead of the presidential election could violate federal election law, Paxton intervened by filing a FOIA request, accusing the government of “intimidation of businessman Elon Musk.”This summer, Musk’s activities in Texas didn’t slow down: Texas legislators called for an audit after the Texas Broadband Development Office allocated $110 million in grants to Musk’s satellite internet company Starlink; Texas’ Office of the Comptroller recently announced that “Terafab,” Musk’s proposed 100-million-square-foot chip manufacturing facility in Grimes County, was the recipient of a $1.66 billion tax break; and SpaceX has also received around $30 million in state grants.