Elon Musk's business empire braces for Democratic wave as Texas flips blue

Musk spent nearly half a billion dollars backing Republican candidates and trying to keep Texas red. After Democrats won both chambers of Congress and Hinojosa defeated Abbott, analysts and experts expect Democrats to scrutinize data-center projects and potentially push construction moratoriums as local opposition grows over electricity costs.

Hinojosa has called for an immediate halt to new data-center projects until lawmakers strengthen protections for local communities, and an end to tax breaks. She has also opposed a potential sale of a beachfront state park to SpaceX. Musk has faced scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers over satellite communications restrictions affecting Ukraine's military, federal job cuts under his watch at DOGE, and government contracts and subsidies for his companies.

SpaceX aims to increase data-center capacity from 1.7 gigawatts at September-end to as much as 3 gigawatts by year-end, then 13 gigawatts next year. The company has touted a $28.5 trillion addressable market, and renting computing power from its Colossus and Colossus II facilities to customers including Anthropic has helped it post its first profit as a public company. Delays could hamper its revenue targets and intensify investor scrutiny of AI infrastructure costs.