Elon Musk Gave $158 Million to Elect Ken Paxton. Paxton Keeps Investigating Musk's Enemies.

A Very Large Check for a Very Indicted Man

Start with the number. Federal Election Commission filings show Musk has put at least $158 million into super PACs supporting Paxton's bid for the Senate. Last week he posted on X: "The fate of Texas and America is at stake. Vote for @KenPaxtonTX today." Subtle.

State filings also show Musk gave $5 million to Abbott's reelection campaign, making him the governor's single largest donor. That is not a donor. That is a landlord.

And this is deep-red Texas, where polls suggest a number of races are looking dizzyingly close. The richest man on Earth has decided that is a problem money can fix, as reported by WIRED.

Fourteen Hundred Pages of Embarrassment

State representative Gina Hinojosa, who is running against Abbott, sued to see the governor's full correspondence with Musk. That is 1,400 pages. Abbott has been trying to block their release for some time, and his own office described the communications as too "intimate and embarrassing" to be made public.

Sit with that. A sitting governor's office, in writing, called its messages with a billionaire donor intimate and embarrassing. Nobody asked them to use those words. They volunteered them.

This week a judge ruled that Abbott had illegally "obstructed and continues to obstruct" Hinojosa's right to inspect the documents as a state lawmaker, and ordered them released to her. Abbott appealed. The hearing is scheduled for November 2, one day before the election. Funny how the calendar works out.

The Attorney General's Office as a Musk Customer Service Desk

Here is where it gets ugly. Musk moved Tesla's headquarters to Austin in 2021, and sources told WIRED that from about 2021 onward, lawyers in the Texas attorney general's office were increasingly told by the executive branch, which included Paxton and Abbott, who and what to investigate. Internal efforts to steer resources toward more "legitimate" issues did not win.

The timing is the tell. In 2022, Musk sent Twitter a letter threatening to abandon his $44 billion acquisition over its bot numbers. The same day, Paxton's office announced it was launching its own investigation of Twitter. Same day. Staff raised eyebrows internally, which is the polite government way of saying they saw exactly what was happening.

A year later, Musk sued the progressive watchdog Media Matters for defamation after it published an investigation showing X had placed major brands' ads next to white-nationalist content. Moments after he filed, Paxton's office announced its own investigation of Media Matters. Media Matters sued Paxton, claiming retaliation for its coverage of Musk and X.

The Pattern Keeps Repeating

In 2024, Musk filed an antitrust lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers and major brands, accusing them of conspiring to pull revenue from X. Paxton announced his own investigation into the organization, citing a "potential anticompetitive scheme to withhold advertising dollars from certain social media platforms." He somehow did not mention X by name. Discretion is a virtue.

Then came the sweepstakes. The Justice Department's Public Integrity Section warned Musk that his America PAC's million-dollar giveaway ahead of the presidential election could violate federal election law. Paxton jumped in with a FOIA request accusing the government of "intimidation of businessman Elon Musk."

That is a state attorney general running interference for one man's brush with federal election law. Not for a constituent in trouble. For the guy who is now writing him eight-figure checks, over and over.

Texas Pays Up Too

The state's generosity is not limited to legal favors. Texas legislators called for an audit after the Texas Broadband Development Office allocated $110 million in grants to Musk's satellite internet company Starlink. The comptroller's office announced that Terafab, Musk's proposed 100-million-square-foot chip manufacturing facility in Grimes County, will receive a $1.66 billion tax break. SpaceX has picked up around $30 million in state grants.

Add it up. Over a billion and a half in tax breaks, more than a hundred million in broadband grants, and tens of millions more in SpaceX money. Then compare it to the $158 million and $5 million Musk handed over. As investments go, the return is hard to beat.

James Talarico, the state representative running against Paxton, put it bluntly at an El Paso event: "Ken Paxton has the ultimate megadonor. Elon Musk is trying to buy this Senate seat." He is not wrong about the trying, at least.

The Man Being Bought Has a Record

Paxton is not exactly a clean slate for a billionaire to build on. As attorney general, he was indicted on felony securities fraud charges, which he settled without a plea. Whistleblowers accused him of using his office to benefit the financial interests of a political donor. He was impeached, though later acquitted.

So the pitch to Texas voters is a Senate candidate with an indictment, an impeachment, and a donor-favor whistleblower saga, bankrolled by a man whose lawsuits keep getting matched by state investigations within hours. That is not a campaign. That is a subscription service.