By Lauren McGaughy, The Texas Newsroom, for ProPublica
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 regulation, permitting him to bypass the state’s highly effective automobile 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 approach.
“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 swimsuit 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 wished to move died.
Greater than a decade later, nonetheless, Musk’s fortunes contained in the Texas Capitol have modified — dramatically.
Musk is not solely one of many richest folks on the planet, who, till lately, was a key member of President Donald Trump’s second administration, however he’s additionally change into one of the crucial 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 information for committee testimony and different proof of his public stances.
Musk wished legislators to move new legal guidelines that might make it quicker and simpler for householders to set up backup energy mills, just like the form Tesla makes, on their properties. He wished them to create new crimes so individuals who fly drones or intrude with operations at his rocket firm SpaceX may be arrested. And he wished to alter who managed the freeway and public seashore close to SpaceX’s South Texas website so he can launch his rockets based on his timeline.
Musk acquired all of them.
In a Capitol the place the overwhelming majority of payments fail to move, all however three of Musk’s public priorities will change into regulation. The 2 payments his lobbyists brazenly opposed are useless, together with a measure that might have regulated autonomous autos.
Musk made positive aspects even on payments he didn’t publicly endorse. Texas lawmakers adopted the tech big’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 tackle lawmakers in individual this session to make the case for any of his priorities.
Critics mentioned these new legal guidelines will hand Musk’s corporations extra 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 lately ended his run with DOGE, and his relationship with Trump has more and more frayed.
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Opposite to his slash-and-burn ways in Washington, D.C., the place he bulldozed his approach 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 regulation 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 big X and Tesla, are actually 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 residence 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 via public data 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, mentioned 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 in all Musk’s high priorities was rapidly clear. He wished 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 guts 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 seashore, known as Boca Chica. The county labored carefully with SpaceX to make sure the world 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 wished state lawmakers handy the brand new metropolis the facility to shut Boca Chica Seashore and the adjoining public freeway in the course of the week, a change the county officers opposed.
State Sen. Adam Hinojosa, a newly elected Republican who represents the world, authored the laws to shift management to Starbase. Dozens of SpaceX staff acquired concerned within the effort, submitting pages of an identical feedback to lawmakers in assist.
Democrats succeeded in killing Hinojosa’s invoice, prompting native activists to have a good time. 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 area exploration agenda.
The brand new regulation states that the fee’s board can shut highways and gulf seashores with the approval of a neighborhood 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 normal 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 way I view it is SpaceX wanted a certain amount of power,” mentioned 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 concerning the position Starbase might play now that it’ll change into regulation.

Lawmakers handed a number of extra payments to learn spaceports, the websites the place spacecraft launch, like SpaceX.
Whereas Texas is residence 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 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.
Apart from the seashore closure laws, many handed with the assist of Democrats.
At SpaceX’s urging, Texas lawmakers handed a measure to ban drones over spaceports. Additionally they added spaceports to the state’s “critical infrastructure” amenities, which already embrace airports and navy bases. The regulation will make it a felony to deliberately injury or interrupt the operation of any website the place a spacecraft is examined or launched. Related essential infrastructure legal guidelines have been utilized in different states to arrest folks protesting oil and gasoline pipeline tasks.
Bekah Hinojosa with the South Texas Environmental Justice Community, a neighborhood activist group, instructed The Texas Newsroom the brand new essential infrastructure regulation 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 a neighborhood Indigenous tribe, are suing the state, arguing that closing Boca Chica violates an modification to the Texas Structure that protects entry to public seashores.
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The Normal Land Workplace, the primary defendant in that swimsuit, declined to remark. In courtroom filings, Texas Lawyer Normal Ken Paxton argues the state can nonetheless regulate seashore 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 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 houses, that they submitted a dozen feedback in opposition to it.
This regulation went into impact on Might 15.
One other new regulation will make it tougher for crew members and sure different staff to sue area flight corporations. This, like most new laws authorized this session, will change into regulation on Sept. 1.
SpaceX’s solely important public defeat throughout this yr’s legislative session was the failure of a invoice it supported to present spaceports a tax lower. The measure would have price almost $14.5 million over 5 years, based on an official estimate from the Legislative Finances 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,” mentioned 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 whole cloak of secrecy with whatever Elon is doing,” Jah mentioned. “We will not and should not cease to launch satellites or explore space. But the way in which we do it matters a lot.”
“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 meant to create a buffer zone between houses and large-scale power storage amenities like the sort Tesla sells.
The opposite invoice would have imposed extra rules 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 car 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 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 car {industry}.
It’ll require business operators, similar to robotaxi and driverless massive rig corporations, to acquire authorization from the state. This approval may be revoked if the corporate’s autos 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 car corporations may even need to 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 group 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 rules in 2017. However with extra autonomous autos hitting the streets, Nichols mentioned it was time to make clear the principles and known as his invoice “a real opportunity here to actually improve safety.”
Nichols’ laws initially died within the Texas Home. However with lower than every week earlier than lawmakers packed as much as go residence, a Home member added the whole lot of Nichols’ invoice as an modification to one other transportation invoice, which can change into regulation Sept. 1.
Tray Gober, a private harm lawyer who handles car crash circumstances in Austin, mentioned it’s sensible to get new rules for autonomous autos on the books. However he worries that Texas is speeding to present its blessing to a expertise that has not been absolutely examined.
“We’re not talking about rockets crashing into the ocean. We’re talking about cars crashing into other people,” he mentioned, 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 considerations that there may very well be fatalities because the variety of driverless automobiles grows in Texas, Nichols mentioned, “There probably will be. Eventually there will be. I would not doubt that.” However he pointed to research displaying autonomous autos 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 simply too slender to make conclusions concerning 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 screens within the passenger seats.
Many Democrats opposed Nichols’ proposal. However no less than three different payments affecting Tesla acquired bipartisan assist.
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At instances, the Sierra Membership was combating in opposition to Musk’s SpaceX payments whereas working along with his Tesla lobbyists on clear power laws, mentioned Reed, the membership’s conservation director. For instance, Tesla and the Sierra Membership each supported laws to create new fireplace requirements for battery power storage amenities and tackle the environmental and monetary challenges related to decommissioning them.
Tesla additionally backed a invoice that had bipartisan assist to make it simpler for householders to put in backup energy mills, similar to the corporate’s Powerwall.
Reed mentioned Musk’s shift to the suitable 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 interesting time in our country, right?”
Musk’s Oblique Affect
For all of the payments Musk pushed to see move, 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 title an homage to Musk’s controversial federal cost-slashing effort in Washington, D.C.
Musk himself took no public position 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 kinds of authorized challenges shareholders can file.
Musk and his lobbyists by no means got here out in assist 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 problem after his $55 billion compensation package deal at Tesla was challenged in Delaware’s enterprise courts. Musk moved a lot 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 keep in mind whether or not Musk’s corporations had been concerned.
Abbott signed the DExit invoice and a handful of different enterprise payments into regulation on Might 14. Standing behind him at a public ceremony marking the event had been Hughes and a big group of enterprise representatives.
Standing behind Hughes was a consultant from Tesla.