Musk bet big on keeping Texas red. What happens to his business empire now?

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Elon Musk poured nearly half a billion dollars into the midterms to support Republican candidates, most to help Ken Paxton defeat Democrat James Talarico in the Texas Senate race.

Talarico won. But it was the other Democrat upsets in the state, for governor and attorney general, that could cause bigger problems for Musk and his Texas-based companies: rocket and AI company SpaceX and electric car maker Tesla.

Not only will he likely face greater regulatory scrutiny, but both candidates took direct aim at Musk and his businesses while on the campaign trail.

“It’s less about the blue wave on the Senate or House side,” said tech analyst Daniel Ives, a SpaceX and Tesla bull, about what the Tuesday’s election results mean for Musk. “It’s more with the Texas governor.”

Democrat Nathan Johnson, who is replacing Paxton as Texas attorney general, said in July that if elected, he would investigate whether SpaceX’s Starlink service was unfairly awarded grants designed to expand rural broadband. The internet service is SpaceX’s most profitable unit.

And Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, who unseated incumbent Greg Abbott, made opposition to data centers a major plank of her campaign. She has vowed to put a moratorium on new data center construction. Both Tesla and SpaceX have banked their future success on their AI efforts.

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SpaceX is planning major investments in new data centers in the next year, including the massive Colossal 3 to be built just outside of Brownsville, Texas. Unlike a lot of artificial intelligence companies, SpaceX earns a profit from selling time on its servers and cloud platforms to other AI companies. Hinojosa’s proposed moratorium would be a critical blow to its plans.

“I mean, those Texas data center plans are a key part of Musk’s ambitions,” Ives said. He said that’s why SpaceX and Tesla shares fell Wednesday, both dropping more than 3%, even as many other tech stocks rose.

Musk, the world’s richest person with a net worth estimated at about $898 billion, likely won’t sweat the money he lost backing Republicans, or even Wednesday’s decline in value for his shares.

The bigger issue for Musk is an increased level of scrutiny, which he noted on his social media platform, X, on Wednesday.

“Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” Musk wrote, referencing his ultimate ambitions.

Experts say lifting and operating data centers in outer space still face many hurdles. But even if it was possible, SpaceX may have to take off from a spaceport in Louisiana if Texas moves to limit launches.

SpaceX has faced public criticism for the operation of its spaceport, “Starbase,” on Texas’ Gulf Coast. Some residents near the launch facilities have long expressed worries about disruptive sonic booms — which can be as loud as gunshots and register as small earthquakes — and collectively filed a lawsuit this year.

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SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment about the lawsuit. But Musk has previously downplayed sonic booms, saying in a 2022 post on X that “storms and hurricanes that are far more serious than Starship launches.”

Those resident complaints, however, could find a more sympathetic ear from Hinojosa compared to Abbott. (Hinojosa’s campaign did not respond to questions from CNN about her position on the spaceport.)

Tesla only has driverless “robotaxis” in four cities in Texas and three cities in Florida. For comparison, rival Waymo, a unit of Alphabet, operates in 15 cities across the country.

Local governments decide which vehicles, self-driving or otherwise, are allowed on their roads.

“It would it would be a big blow if robotaxis faced more regulation,” he said.

Tesla hasn’t listed profits or losses for its robotaxi service. But Musk has made it clear that Tesla’s future is selling rides in its robotaxis, not car sales. And a large part of Tesla’s evaluation is the expectation that its robotaxi service will eventually operate nationwide, Ives said.

Ives says Hinojosa’s threat to the AI industry goes beyond just SpaceX. Texas is a key to US AI development. The state has the most planned data centers in the country, according to research firm, Cleanview, and is second only to Virigina for the number of open or under construction.

“Hinojosa is a known anti-data center politician and negative on the AI buildout which makes worries around the future of the datacenter buildout in Texas a real issue for tech investors,” Ives said in a note to investors Wednesday. “SpaceX stock will be under pressure.”

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埃隆·马斯克在中期选举中投入了近 5 亿美元支持共和党候选人，其中大部分用于帮助肯·帕克斯顿在德克萨斯州参议员竞选中击败民主党人詹姆斯·塔拉里科。

塔拉里科赢了。但该州其他民主党候选人在州长和总检察长选举中的意外获胜，可能会给马斯克及其总部位于德克萨斯州的公司——火箭和人工智能公司SpaceX以及电动汽车制造商特斯拉——带来更大的麻烦。

他不仅可能面临更严格的监管审查，而且两位候选人在竞选期间都直接抨击了马斯克及其企业。

“这与其说是参议院或众议院的蓝色浪潮，”科技分析师丹尼尔·艾夫斯（Daniel Ives）说道，他是SpaceX和特斯拉的坚定支持者，他谈到周二的选举结果对马斯克意味着什么时表示，“更重要的是德克萨斯州州长。”

即将接替帕克斯顿出任德克萨斯州总检察长的民主党人内森·约翰逊在7月份表示，如果当选，他将调查SpaceX公司的星链服务是否不公平地获得了旨在扩大农村宽带覆盖范围的拨款。这项互联网服务是SpaceX公司最赚钱的业务。

当选州长吉娜·希诺霍萨（Gina Hinojosa）击败了现任州长格雷格·阿博特（Greg Abbott），她将反对数据中心作为竞选纲领的重要组成部分。她誓言要暂停新建数据中心。特斯拉和SpaceX都将未来的成功寄托于人工智能领域。

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SpaceX计划明年对新建数据中心进行大规模投资，其中包括位于德克萨斯州布朗斯维尔郊外的巨型Colossal 3数据中心。与许多人工智能公司不同，SpaceX通过向其他人工智能公司出售其服务器和云平台的使用时间来盈利。希诺霍萨提出的暂停令将对其计划造成重大打击。

“我的意思是，那些德州数据中心计划是马斯克雄心壮志的关键组成部分，”艾夫斯说道。他表示，这就是为什么SpaceX和特斯拉的股价周三下跌的原因，两家公司的股价均下跌超过3%，而其他许多科技股却上涨了。

身价估计约为 8980 亿美元的世界首富马斯克，可能不会为支持共和党而损失的钱而烦恼，甚至也不会在意周三其股票价值的下跌。

对马斯克来说，更大的问题是日益严格的审查，他周三在他的社交媒体平台 X 上也提到了这一点。

“太空数据中心现在看起来相当有吸引力，”马斯克写道，这里指的是他的最终目标。

专家表示，在太空中建造和运营数据中心仍然面临诸多挑战。但即便可行，如果德克萨斯州限制发射，SpaceX 也可能不得不从路易斯安那州的航天发射场起飞。

SpaceX公司位于德克萨斯州墨西哥湾沿岸的太空发射场“星际基地”（Starbase）的运营一直饱受公众批评。发射设施附近的一些居民长期以来一直担心会受到音爆的干扰——音爆的音量堪比枪声，并会引发类似小型地震的震动——他们今年集体提起了一项诉讼。

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SpaceX公司没有回应有关诉讼的置评请求。但马斯克此前曾淡化音爆的影响，他在2022年发表于X博客的一篇文章中表示，“比星舰发射严重得多的风暴和飓风”才是真正的问题所在。

然而，相比阿博特，希诺霍萨或许更能理解并回应这些居民的抱怨。（希诺霍萨的竞选团队没有回应CNN关于她对航天发射场立场的提问。）

特斯拉目前仅在德克萨斯州的四个城市和佛罗里达州的三个城市运营无人驾驶“机器人出租车”。相比之下，其竞争对手、Alphabet旗下的Waymo已在全美15个城市开展业务。

地方政府决定哪些车辆（包括自动驾驶车辆）可以在其道路上行驶。

“如果自动驾驶出租车面临更多监管，那将是一个巨大的打击，”他说。

特斯拉尚未公布其无人驾驶出租车服务的盈亏情况。但马斯克已明确表示，特斯拉的未来在于销售无人驾驶出租车服务，而非销售汽车。艾夫斯表示，特斯拉评估业绩的一个重要依据是其无人驾驶出租车服务最终将在全国范围内运营。

艾夫斯表示，希诺霍萨对人工智能行业的威胁远不止SpaceX一家公司。德克萨斯州是美国人工智能发展的关键州。据市场研究公司Cleanview的数据显示，该州规划建设的数据中心数量位居全美之首，在已建成或在建的数据中心数量方面仅次于弗吉尼亚州。

“希诺霍萨是众所周知的反数据中心政客，他对人工智能建设持否定态度，这使得科技投资者对德克萨斯州数据中心未来建设的担忧成为一个切实存在的问题，”艾夫斯周三在一份致投资者的报告中写道。“SpaceX的股价将面临压力。”