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This text is co-published with The Texas Newsroom and The Texas Tribune as a part of an initiative to report on how energy is wielded in Texas.
Reporting Highlights
- Successful Document: Within the Texas Capitol, the place the overwhelming majority of payments fail to go, all however three of Elon Musk’s public priorities grew to become legislation this legislative session.
- Firm Features: Musk’s wins embrace legal guidelines that can profit firms like SpaceX and Tesla.
- Taking part in the Lengthy Recreation: Musk has steadily invested his private {and professional} capital in Texas over greater than a decade. Most of his companies at the moment are headquartered right here.
These highlights have been written by the reporters and editors who labored on this story.
Elon Musk was pleading.
It was April 2013, and Musk stood at a podium in a small committee room within the basement of the Texas Capitol. The Tesla CEO requested the legislators gathered earlier than him to vary state legislation, permitting him to bypass the state’s highly effective automotive dealership foyer and promote his electrical autos on to the general public.
He painted a bleak image of what might occur in the event that they didn’t give him his means.
“We’d, I’m afraid, we might fail,” Musk instructed the assembled representatives. “So for us, it’s a matter of life or loss of life.”
Clad in a darkish go well with as a substitute of his now ubiquitous black T-shirt and baseball hat, the youthful Musk was unable to influence lawmakers in Austin. That yr, the invoice he needed to go died.
Greater than a decade later, nonetheless, Musk’s fortunes contained in the Texas Capitol have modified — dramatically.
Musk is no longer solely one of many richest individuals on the planet, who, till lately, was a key member of President Donald Trump’s second administration, however he’s additionally turn out to be one of the vital highly effective enterprise and political figures within the state.
Throughout this yr’s legislative session, Musk’s lobbyists and representatives publicly advocated for nearly a dozen payments that may profit his firms. The Texas Newsroom recognized these priorities by looking legislative data for committee testimony and different proof of his public stances.
Musk needed legislators to go new legal guidelines that may make it quicker and simpler for householders to set up backup energy mills, just like the type Tesla makes, on their properties. He needed them to create new crimes so individuals who fly drones or intrude with operations at his rocket firm SpaceX will be arrested. And he needed to vary who managed the freeway and public seaside close to SpaceX’s South Texas website so he can launch his rockets in accordance with his timeline.
Musk bought all of them.
In a Capitol the place the overwhelming majority of payments fail to go, all however three of Musk’s public priorities will turn out to be legislation. The 2 payments his lobbyists overtly opposed are lifeless, together with a measure that may have regulated autonomous autos.
Musk made positive factors even on payments he didn’t publicly endorse. Texas lawmakers adopted the tech large’s lead by rewriting the state’s company legal guidelines and creating a brand new workplace modeled after the Division of Authorities Effectivity, the controversial effort he led within the Trump administration to chop federal spending.
By all accounts, Musk’s affect was nice sufficient that he didn’t should formally handle lawmakers in particular person this session to make the case for any of his priorities.
Critics stated these new legal guidelines will hand Musk’s firms extra cash, extra energy and extra safety from scrutiny as his enterprise footprint continues to increase throughout Texas.
“The actual hurt is the affect of a personal firm on the choices made by authorities,” Cyrus Reed, the conservation director for the Sierra Membership’s Lone Star Chapter, instructed The Texas Newsroom. The Sierra Membership is a part of a gaggle suing the state over SpaceX’s actions in South Texas.
Musk and his representatives didn’t reply to requests for an interview. He lately ended his run with DOGE, and his relationship with Trump has more and more frayed.
Opposite to his slash-and-burn ways in Washington, D.C., the place he bulldozed his means onto the scene after Trump’s reelection, Musk has performed the lengthy sport to amass energy in Texas. He nonetheless hasn’t succeeded in altering Texas legislation to permit for Tesla direct gross sales, however that hasn’t stopped him from steadily investing his private {and professional} capital within the state over greater than a decade. Most of his companies, together with the tunneling agency The Boring Firm, social media large X and Tesla, at the moment are headquartered right here. Whereas it’s nonetheless primarily based in California, SpaceX operates manufacturing, testing and launch websites throughout Texas.
Musk has additionally moved his private dwelling to the state, reportedly securing properties in the Austin space and South Texas.
Within the Texas Capitol, Musk’s energy is delicate however plain.
Calendars and emails obtained by The Texas Newsroom by public info requests present his firm’s representatives met repeatedly with lawmakers backing his precedence payments and invited Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to tour SpaceX. Patrick, who leads the state Senate, additionally penned a letter to the Federal Aviation Administration supporting the rocket firm’s request to extend its launches in South Texas.
Texas politics, with its lengthy historical past of outsize characters, has by no means seen the likes of Musk, stated Rice College political scientist Mark Jones.
“Even within the heyday of the [George W.] Bush period, you couldn’t discover someone who had such dramatic wealth as Musk, who additionally had the identical degree of entry and enterprise pursuits right here in Texas,” Jones instructed The Texas Newsroom. “At present, Elon Musk is arguably probably the most highly effective and influential personal citizen within the nation.”
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Michael Gonzalez for KUT Information
“It’s All to Assist Elon”
When lawmakers convened their 2025 legislative session in January, considered one of Musk’s high priorities was shortly clear. He needed extra management over the space round SpaceX’s launch website in South Texas.
Often known as Starbase, the large rocket testing and launch facility has come to dominate the small rural space between Brownsville, on the border, and the Gulf of Mexico. It’s the launch website for Starship, the rocket meant to finally take people to Mars and the center of Musk’s mission to make people a multiplanetary species. The FAA lately gave SpaceX permission to improve Starship launches fivefold.
Though SpaceX owns many of the land round Starbase, county officers retained the authority over entry to the adjoining public seaside, known as Boca Chica. The county labored carefully with SpaceX to make sure the realm was cleared forward of launches, however the firm’s leaders didn’t have final management over the method.
That modified this yr. First, Musk determined to include the launch website as its personal metropolis. That occurred on Might 3, when the few residents who stay within the space — most of whom The Texas Newsroom decided work for SpaceX — voted to create the brand new metropolis of Starbase.
Musk then needed state lawmakers at hand the brand new metropolis the ability to shut Boca Chica Seaside and the adjoining public freeway throughout the week, a change the county officers opposed.
State Sen. Adam Hinojosa, a newly elected Republican who represents the realm, authored the laws to shift management to Starbase. Dozens of SpaceX workers bought concerned within the effort, submitting pages of equivalent feedback to lawmakers in help.
Democrats succeeded in killing Hinojosa’s invoice, prompting native activists to have fun. Their victory was short-lived. Late within the session, lawmakers determined as a substitute to shift a few of this energy to the Texas Area Fee, which facilitates the state’s house exploration agenda.
The brand new legislation states that the fee’s board can shut highways and gulf seashores with the approval of an area municipality, which, on this case, is Starbase. SpaceX retains a connection to the fee itself: Kathy Lueders, who confirmed that she left her job as Starbase basic supervisor final month, nonetheless sits on the Area Fee board. She directed extra inquiries to the fee.
The Area Fee declined to reply questions on SpaceX’s potential future involvement with these discussions.
“The best way I view it’s SpaceX needed a specific amount of energy,” stated Reed, with the Sierra Membership. “And on the finish of the day, they didn’t fairly get it, however they bought one thing fairly shut.”
The invoice handed alongside largely partisan strains. Republican state Rep. Greg Bonnen, who authored the invoice, didn’t reply to a request for remark in regards to the function Starbase could play now that it’ll turn out to be legislation.
Lawmakers handed a number of extra payments to profit spaceports, the websites the place spacecraft launch, like SpaceX.
Whereas Texas is dwelling to a number of spaceports, together with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, SpaceX dwarfs the remaining in dimension and scope of affect throughout the state and nation, boasting giant federal authorities contracts and a rising satellite tv for pc {industry}.
Hinojosa was an creator or sponsor on most of those payments; he didn’t reply to a number of requests for an interview or remark for this story.
Aside from the seaside closure laws, many handed with the help of Democrats.
At SpaceX’s urging, Texas lawmakers handed a measure to ban drones over spaceports. In addition they added spaceports to the state’s “vital infrastructure” amenities, which already embrace airports and army bases. The legislation will make it a felony to deliberately injury or interrupt the operation of any website the place a spacecraft is examined or launched. Related vital infrastructure legal guidelines have been utilized in different states to arrest individuals protesting oil and fuel pipeline initiatives.
Bekah Hinojosa with the South Texas Environmental Justice Community, an area activist group, instructed The Texas Newsroom the brand new vital infrastructure legislation will let Musk “militarize our Boca Chica Seaside for his harmful rocket testing endeavors.”
The Sierra Membership and different teams from South Texas, together with an area Indigenous tribe, are suing the state, arguing that closing Boca Chica violates an modification to the Texas Structure that protects entry to public seashores.
The Common Land Workplace, the principle defendant in that go well with, declined to remark. In court docket filings, Texas Legal professional Common Ken Paxton argues the state can nonetheless regulate seaside entry for public security causes and that it can’t be sued on this case as a result of it has immunity. The case is pending on the Texas Supreme Courtroom.
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Michael Gonzalez for KUT Information
Legislators additionally handed two extra new legal guidelines that can protect firms like SpaceX from public scrutiny and authorized challenges.
One will exempt sure army and aerospace points from public conferences legal guidelines, permitting elected officers in some circumstances to debate these matters behind closed doorways. The proposal was so regarding to residents who stay near SpaceX’s facility close to Waco, the place locals say the corporate’s rocket testing has spooked livestock and broken properties, that they submitted a dozen feedback towards it.
This legislation went into impact on Might 15.
One other new legislation will make it tougher for crew members and sure different workers to sue house flight firms. This, like most new laws permitted this session, will turn out to be legislation on Sept. 1.
SpaceX’s solely important public defeat throughout this yr’s legislative session was the failure of a invoice it supported to provide spaceports a tax lower. The measure would have value practically $14.5 million over 5 years, in accordance with an official estimate from the Legislative Funds Board.
Moriba Jah, a professor of aerospace engineering and engineering mechanics on the College of Texas at Austin, believes Texas is pandering to Musk.
“It’s all to assist Elon,” stated Jah, who added that his viewpoint is rooted in resisting insurance policies that allow what he known as “environmental plunder masked as ‘innovation.’” He has considerations that the state is investing in spaceports, most notably Musk’s, whereas carving out exceptions that prohibit public perception and enter into what’s taking place at these amenities.
“There’s this complete cloak of secrecy with no matter Elon is doing,” Jah stated. “We is not going to and mustn’t stop to launch satellites or discover house. However the way in which wherein we do it issues quite a bit.”
“They By no means Come Out of the Shadows”
This yr, Tesla’s lobbyists publicly advocated towards solely two payments. Each died.
One was a GOP-authored proposal meant to create a buffer zone between properties and large-scale power storage amenities like the type Tesla sells.
The opposite invoice would have imposed extra laws on the kind of vehicles that Musk is rolling out as robotaxis in Texas, and would have required a public listening to if a collision involving an autonomous automobile resulted in a fatality.
Invoice creator Rep. Terry Canales, an Edinburg Democrat, believes his laws failed as a result of it was not pro-industry sufficient.
“Tesla is the worst actor that I’ve ever handled within the Capitol. They’re subversive. They by no means come out of the shadows,” Canales instructed The Texas Newsroom. “Not solely did I not hear from them, I didn’t count on to listen to from them as a result of that’s the way in which they function.”
Lawmakers as a substitute superior a distinct invoice, one with a lighter regulatory contact that was crafted with enter from the autonomous automobile {industry}.
It can require business operators, reminiscent of robotaxi and driverless huge rig firms, to acquire authorization from the state. This approval will be revoked if the corporate’s autos endanger the general public, together with inflicting “critical bodily harm,” although it requires no public hearings within the case of a fatality, as Canales’ invoice would have carried out. Autonomous automobile firms will even should develop plans for interacting with emergency responders.
Tesla took a impartial stance on the laws. However the invoice’s creator, state Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, instructed The Texas Newsroom that Tesla’s workforce participated in work teams and stakeholder conversations with {industry} teams, trial attorneys and others.
Texas has been on the forefront of testing this expertise for years, rolling out its first laws in 2017. However with extra autonomous autos hitting the streets, Nichols stated it was time to make clear the principles and known as his invoice “an actual alternative right here to truly enhance security.”
Nichols’ laws initially died within the Texas Home. However with lower than every week earlier than lawmakers packed as much as go dwelling, a Home member added the whole thing of Nichols’ invoice as an modification to one other transportation invoice, which can turn out to be legislation Sept. 1.
Tray Gober, a private harm lawyer who handles automobile crash circumstances in Austin, stated it’s sensible to get new laws for autonomous autos on the books. However he worries that Texas is speeding to provide its blessing to a expertise that has not been totally examined.
“We’re not speaking about rockets crashing into the ocean. We’re speaking about vehicles crashing into different individuals,” he stated, evaluating Tesla to SpaceX. “There’s going to be individuals which can be damage throughout this technique of bettering these methods, and that’s unlucky. I believe it’s considered as collateral injury by these firms.”
When requested about considerations that there might be fatalities because the variety of driverless vehicles grows in Texas, Nichols stated, “There most likely will likely be. Finally there will likely be. I’d not doubt that.” However he pointed to research displaying autonomous autos are safer than human drivers.
“If you happen to begin wanting on the breakdown of the fatalities on the roads and the crashes and the wrecks, what causes them? It’s not tools failure. It’s driver distraction,” he instructed The Texas Newsroom.
Critics of those research argue their scope is simply too slim to make conclusions in regards to the security of self-driving expertise. Citing security considerations, some native lawmakers requested Tesla’s robotaxi rollout in Austin to be delayed. The corporate continued with the launch however with human displays within the passenger seats.
Many Democrats opposed Nichols’ proposal. However a minimum of three different payments affecting Tesla bought bipartisan help.
At instances, the Sierra Membership was combating towards Musk’s SpaceX payments whereas working along with his Tesla lobbyists on clear power laws, stated Reed, the membership’s conservation director. For instance, Tesla and the Sierra Membership each supported laws to create new hearth requirements for battery power storage amenities and handle the environmental and monetary challenges related to decommissioning them.
Tesla additionally backed a invoice that had bipartisan help to make it simpler for householders to put in backup energy mills, reminiscent of the corporate’s Powerwall.
Reed stated Musk’s shift to the proper has created attention-grabbing bedfellows, generally making it simpler for Republicans to again a number of the power insurance policies extra historically related to progressives.
He remarked, “It’s an attention-grabbing time in our nation, proper?”
Musk’s Oblique Affect
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Michael Minasi/KUT Information
For all of the payments Musk pushed to see go, he additionally not directly influenced the creation of latest legal guidelines on which he didn’t take a public stance.
Texas lawmakers created the state’s personal DOGE workplace housed underneath the governor, the title an homage to Musk’s controversial federal cost-slashing effort in Washington, D.C.
Musk himself took no public function in creating the brand new workplace. However at a signing ceremony for the invoice, Gov. Greg Abbott defined he was the inspiration.
Texas legislators additionally rewrote the state’s company legal guidelines after Musk raised considerations about enterprise codes in different states. Authored by Republican state Sen. Bryan Hughes, the rewrite shields enterprise leaders from lawsuits and establishes thresholds for the forms of authorized challenges shareholders can file.
Musk and his lobbyists by no means got here out in help of the invoice, however he has lengthy complained that states wanted to shore up protections for CEOs and different enterprise leaders.
Musk started crusading on the difficulty after his $55 billion compensation bundle at Tesla was challenged in Delaware’s enterprise courts. Musk moved lots of his companies elsewhere, together with Texas, and publicly urged different firms to “get the hell out of Delaware.”
The laws written in response was dubbed the “DExit” invoice.
“Texas is a lot better than Delaware,” Musk posted on X in early April, simply days after the invoice handed the state Senate. “If Delaware doesn’t reform, it can lose all its company enterprise.”
Final yr, a Delaware decide dominated Musk’s pay bundle violated his fiduciary duties to the corporate’s stockholders. He received most of it again in a shareholder vote, however the decide once more rejected his pay bundle in December.
In an interview, Hughes instructed The Texas Newsroom he heard enter from totally different teams in crafting the Texas laws and couldn’t bear in mind whether or not Musk’s firms have been concerned.
Abbott signed the DExit invoice and a handful of different enterprise payments into legislation on Might 14. Standing behind him at a public ceremony marking the event have been Hughes and a big group of enterprise representatives.
Standing behind Hughes was a consultant from Tesla.
Lauren McGaughy is a journalist with The Texas Newsroom, a collaboration amongst NPR and the general public radio stations in Texas. She relies at KUT Information in Austin. Attain her at [email protected]. Join KUT newsletters.
