Elon Musk's Texas footprint spans a launch facility on the Gulf Coast, a factory outside Austin, and a network of political relationships that runs through the state's senior federal delegation and governor's office. In the span of roughly 72 hours last week, three of his enterprises each absorbed a public setback. The officials closest to him, on the record, produced no response to any of the three.
Side A
The Week's Ledger: Fatality, Dismissal, Arrest
A worker died at SpaceX's Starbase facility in South Texas, triggering an OSHA investigation — the company's seventh violation in the past year, according to the Texas Tribune. The next scheduled rocket launch was set for May 21, days after the death was reported. On Monday of the same week, a federal jury dismissed Elon Musk's lawsuit against OpenAI and its executives, ruling he had filed his claims too late, per KXAN. And in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a driver was arrested after steering a Tesla Cybertruck into Grapevine Lake to test the vehicle's advertised "Wade Mode" feature, according to KVUE.
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The Officials' Week: Documented Relationships, No Public Comment
Governor Greg Abbott has hosted Musk at the Capitol and publicly celebrated Tesla's and SpaceX's Texas presence on multiple occasions. Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz have each appeared alongside Musk at public events and cited his companies as evidence of Texas's economic draw. In the seven days spanning the Starbase fatality, the OpenAI jury verdict, and the Cybertruck arrest, none of the three issued a public statement addressing any of the incidents. Their offices' public-facing communications during the period addressed other matters.
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