Make New York Post a Preferred Source Texas Democrats haven’t even taken office yet, and they’re already taking aim at the man who brought two of America’s biggest companies to the Lone Star State.
Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa, who defeated Republican Gov. Greg Abbott by 7 points last week, has moved to freeze a potential sale of state park land to Elon Musk’s SpaceX, signaling a sharp shift in how Austin plans to deal with the billionaire behind Tesla and SpaceX.
Hinojosa told reporters in Austin on Thursday that she had personally called the head of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department to “request that no action be taken” on the possible Boca Chica State Park deal while she prepares to take office in January.
The land in question spans about 1,300 acres of public property in Cameron County, directly adjacent to SpaceX’s Starbase, the company’s main site for building and launching its Starship rockets.
State parks commissioners had been scheduled to discuss the sale that same day, but the item was pulled from the agenda at Hinojosa’s request.
Later that day, Hinojosa doubled down in an CNN interview.
“Selling our beach to Elon Musk is just something that is almost unimaginable,” she said.
“We can have a strong working relationship with Elon Musk and his companies, but it has to be on our terms,” Hinojosa added. “It cannot be just running over the people of Texas, and that’s what changes now that I will be governor.”
Musk didn’t call out Hinojosa by name, but he took to X to make the case for why his companies chose Texas in the first place.
“SpaceX and Tesla have prospered in Texas, because we were not constantly operating under an oppressive and extractive state government,” he wrote.
“As California became increasingly difficult, due to extreme taxes and overregulation, we moved our major domestic expansions and HQ to Texas,” he added.
Musk relocated to Texas roughly six years ago and later moved the headquarters of both Tesla and SpaceX to the state, a major economic win that Abbott regularly pointed to as proof that the state’s business-friendly approach worked. Tesla’s Austin gigafactory alone employs more than 20,000 workers, making it one of the largest private employers in the region.
Hinojosa, who grew up in South Texas, criticized the potential land deal throughout her campaign, saying she visited Boca Chica Beach regularly as a child.
Texas Monthly first reported last month that the state was weighing a sale with SpaceX as the buyer, though Abbott later said no deal would come up for a vote anytime soon.
The Boca Chica move comes as investors weigh what a Democratic-led Texas could mean for Musk’s businesses. Shares of his companies have slipped since election night, and on Thursday, during a broad market selloff, Tesla fell nearly 11% and SpaceX dropped 9%.
Hinojosa’s targeting of Musk comes as the tech mogul has also been a major political player. He spent hundreds of millions of dollars backing Republicans in Texas and across the country during the midterms.
