Inside Elon Musk’s stellar yr on the Texas Capitol

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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 alter state legislation, permitting him to bypass the state’s highly effective automotive dealership foyer and promote his electrical automobiles on to the general public.

He painted a bleak image of what might occur in the event that they didn’t give him his manner.

“We would, I’m afraid, we would fail,” Musk instructed the assembled representatives. “So for us, it’s a matter of life or death.”

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 steer lawmakers in Austin. That yr, the invoice he needed to cross died.

Greater than a decade later, nevertheless, Musk’s fortunes contained in the Texas Capitol have modified — dramatically.

Musk is no longer solely one of many richest folks on the planet, who, till just lately, was a key member of President Donald Trump’s second administration, however he’s additionally turn out to be one of the 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 might profit his corporations. The Texas Newsroom recognized these priorities by looking legislative data for committee testimony and different proof of his public stances.

Musk needed legislators to cross new legal guidelines that might make it sooner and simpler for householders to set up backup energy mills, just like the variety 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 may be arrested. And he needed to alter who managed the freeway and public seaside close to SpaceX’s South Texas web site so he can launch his rockets based on his timeline.

Musk bought all of them.

In a Capitol the place the overwhelming majority of payments fail to cross, 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 might have regulated autonomous automobiles.

Musk made positive aspects 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 need to formally deal with lawmakers in individual this session to make the case for any of his priorities.

Critics stated these new legal guidelines will hand Musk’s corporations additional cash, extra energy and extra safety from scrutiny as his enterprise footprint continues to broaden throughout Texas.

“The real harm is the influence of a private company on the decisions made by government,” 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 bunch suing the state over SpaceX’s actions in South Texas.

Musk and his representatives didn’t reply to requests for an interview. He just lately ended his run with DOGE, and his relationship with Trump has more and more frayed.

Opposite to his slash-and-burn techniques in Washington, D.C., the place he bulldozed his manner onto the scene after Trump’s reelection, Musk has performed the lengthy recreation 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 based mostly in California, SpaceX operates manufacturing, testing and launch websites throughout Texas.

Musk has additionally moved his private house 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 way of public info requests present his firm’s representatives met commonly 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 in the heyday of the [George W.] Bush era, you couldn’t find somebody who had such dramatic wealth as Musk, who also had the same level of access and business interests here in Texas,” Jones instructed The Texas Newsroom. “Today, Elon Musk is arguably the most powerful and influential private citizen in the country.”

“It’s all to help Elon”

When lawmakers convened their 2025 legislative session in January, one among Musk’s prime priorities was shortly clear. He needed extra management over the space round SpaceX’s launch web site in South Texas.

Often called 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 web site for Starship, the rocket meant to finally take people to Mars and the guts of Musk’s mission to make people a multiplanetary species. The FAA just lately gave SpaceX permission to enhance Starship launches fivefold.

Though SpaceX owns many of the land round Starbase, county officers retained the authority over entry to the adjoining public seaside, referred to 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 web site as its personal metropolis. That occurred on Could 3, when the few residents who reside 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 handy the brand new metropolis the ability to shut Boca Chica Seashore 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 an identical feedback to lawmakers in help.

Democrats succeeded in killing Hinojosa’s invoice, prompting native activists to rejoice. Their victory was short-lived. Late within the session, lawmakers determined as a substitute to shift a few of this energy to the Texas House 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 common supervisor final month, nonetheless sits on the House Fee board. She directed further inquiries to the fee.

The House Fee declined to reply questions on SpaceX’s potential future involvement with these discussions.

“The way I view it is SpaceX wanted a certain amount of power,” stated Reed, with the Sierra Membership. “And at the end of the day, they didn’t quite get it, but they got something pretty close.”

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 might play now that it’s going to turn out to be legislation.

Lawmakers handed a number of extra payments to learn spaceports, the websites the place spacecraft launch, like SpaceX.

Whereas Texas is house 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 massive federal authorities contracts and a rising satellite tv for pc {industry}.

Hinojosa was an writer 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 “critical infrastructure” amenities, which already embody airports and navy bases. The legislation will make it a felony to deliberately harm or interrupt the operation of any web site the place a spacecraft is examined or launched. Related crucial infrastructure legal guidelines have been utilized in different states to arrest folks 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 crucial infrastructure legislation will let Musk “militarize our Boca Chica Seashore 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 primary 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 Court docket.

Legislators additionally handed two extra new legal guidelines that may defend corporations like SpaceX from public scrutiny and authorized challenges.

One will exempt sure navy and aerospace points from public conferences legal guidelines, permitting elected officers in some circumstances to debate these subjects behind closed doorways. The proposal was so regarding to residents who reside near SpaceX’s facility close to Waco, the place locals say the corporate’s rocket testing has spooked livestock and broken houses, that they submitted a dozen feedback in opposition to it.

This legislation went into impact on Could 15.

One other new legislation will make it tougher for crew members and sure different workers to sue house flight corporations. This, like most new laws accepted 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 offer spaceports a tax lower. The measure would have value practically $14.5 million over 5 years, based on 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 help Elon,” stated Jah, who added that his viewpoint is rooted in resisting insurance policies that allow what he referred to as “environmental plunder masked as ‘innovation.’” He has issues 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 whole cloak of secrecy with whatever Elon is doing,” Jah stated. “We will not and should not cease to launch satellites or explore space. But the way in which we do it matters a lot.”

Payments Musk corporations took a stand on throughout the 2025 Texas Legislative session

“They never come out of the shadows”

This yr, Tesla’s lobbyists publicly advocated in opposition to solely two payments. Each died.

One was a GOP-authored proposal supposed to create a buffer zone between houses and large-scale vitality storage amenities like the sort Tesla sells.

The opposite invoice would have imposed extra laws on the kind of automobiles 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 writer 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 dealt with in the Capitol. They’re subversive. They never come out of the shadows,” Canales instructed The Texas Newsroom. “Not only did I not hear from them, I didn’t expect to hear from them because that’s the way they operate.”

Lawmakers as a substitute superior a unique invoice, one with a lighter regulatory contact that was crafted with enter from the autonomous automobile {industry}.

It’s going to require business operators, akin to robotaxi and driverless massive rig corporations, to acquire authorization from the state. This approval may be revoked if the corporate’s automobiles endanger the general public, together with inflicting “serious bodily injury,” although it requires no public hearings within the case of a fatality, as Canales’ invoice would have finished. Autonomous automobile corporations may also need to develop plans for interacting with emergency responders.

Tesla took a impartial stance on the laws. However the invoice’s writer, state Sen. Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, instructed The Texas Newsroom that Tesla’s crew participated in work teams and stakeholder conversations with {industry} teams, trial legal professionals and others.

Texas has been on the forefront of testing this know-how for years, rolling out its first laws in 2017. However with extra autonomous automobiles hitting the streets, Nichols stated it was time to make clear the principles and referred to as his invoice “a real opportunity here to actually improve safety.”

Nichols’ laws initially died within the Texas Home. However with lower than per week earlier than lawmakers packed as much as go house, a Home member added everything 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 automobiles on the books. However he worries that Texas is dashing to offer its blessing to a know-how that has not been totally examined.

“We’re not talking about rockets crashing into the ocean. We’re talking about cars crashing into other people,” he stated, evaluating Tesla to SpaceX. “There’s going to be people that are hurt during this process of improving these systems, and that’s unfortunate. I think it’s viewed as collateral damage by these companies.”

When requested about issues that there could possibly be fatalities because the variety of driverless automobiles grows in Texas, Nichols stated, “There probably will be. Eventually there will be. I would not doubt that.” However he pointed to research displaying autonomous automobiles are safer than human drivers.

“If you start looking at the breakdown of the fatalities on the roads and the crashes and the wrecks, what causes them? It’s not equipment failure. It’s driver distraction,” he instructed The Texas Newsroom.

Critics of those research argue their scope is just too slim to make conclusions in regards to the security of self-driving know-how. Citing security issues, 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 at the least three different payments affecting Tesla bought bipartisan help.

At instances, the Sierra Membership was preventing in opposition to Musk’s SpaceX payments whereas working together with his Tesla lobbyists on clear vitality 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 vitality storage amenities and deal with 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, akin to the corporate’s Powerwall.

Reed stated Musk’s shift to the fitting has created attention-grabbing bedfellows, typically making it simpler for Republicans to again a number of the vitality insurance policies extra historically related to progressives.

He remarked, “It’s an interesting time in our country, right?”

Musk’s oblique affect

For all of the payments Musk pushed to see cross, he additionally not directly influenced the creation of recent 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 identify 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 issues 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 kinds 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 package deal at Tesla was challenged in Delaware’s enterprise courts. Musk moved lots of his companies elsewhere, together with Texas, and publicly urged different corporations to “get the hell out of Delaware.”

The laws written in response was dubbed the “DExit” invoice.

“Texas is much 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 will lose all its corporate business.”

Final yr, a Delaware decide dominated Musk’s pay package deal violated his fiduciary duties to the corporate’s stockholders. He gained most of it again in a shareholder vote, however the decide once more rejected his pay package deal 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 corporations have been concerned.

Abbott signed the DExit invoice and a handful of different enterprise payments into legislation on Could 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 is predicated at KUT Information in Austin. Attain her at [email protected]. Join KUT newsletters.

Disclosure: Rice College and the College of Texas at Austin have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no function within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full listing of them right here.

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