can you even fathom all the seedy shit we don't know about yet
— Karl Bode (@karlbode.com) July 14, 2025 at 10:42 AM
We know the Texas legislature has given Musk a lot of goodies in recent years — including the ‘freedom’ to flout environmental laws at his SpaceX compound. But what exactly did Guv Abbott (and his legislative cronies) have to do to… lure these exciting opportunities? And what exactly did they get in return for their open-hearted generosity?
They don’t want the public to know! Per ProPublica / the Texas Newsroom / the Texas Tribune:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott doesn’t want to reveal months of communications with Elon Musk or representatives from the tech mogul’s companies, arguing in part that they are of a private nature, not of public interest and potentially embarrassing.
Musk had an eventful legislative session in Texas this year. In addition to his lobbyists successfully advocating for several new laws, Abbott cited the Tesla and SpaceX CEO as the inspiration for the state creating its own efficiency office and has praised him for moving the headquarters for many of his businesses to the state in recent years.
As part of an effort to track the billionaire’s influence in the state Capitol, The Texas Newsroom in April requested Abbott and his staff’s emails since last fall with Musk and other people who have an email address associated with some of his companies.
Initially, the governor’s office said it would take more than 13 hours to review the records. It provided a cost estimate of $244.64 for the work and required full payment up front. The Texas Newsroom agreed and cut a check.
After the check was cashed, the governor’s office told The Texas Newsroom it believed all of the records were confidential and asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose office referees disputes over public records, to allow the documents to be kept private.
Matthew Taylor, Abbott’s public information coordinator, gave several reasons the records should not be released. He argued they include private exchanges with lawyers, details about policy-making decisions and information that would reveal how the state entices companies to invest here. Releasing them to the public, he wrote, “would have a chilling effect on the frank and open discussion necessary for the decision-making process.”
Taylor also argued that the communications are confidential under an exception to public records laws known as “common-law privacy” because they consist of “information that is intimate and embarrassing and not of legitimate concern to the public, including financial decisions that do not relate to transactions between an individual and a governmental body.”
He did not provide further details about the exact content of the records…
Baud
Sounds like there are dick pics.
Other MJS
When “embarrassing” is your choice of weasel words …
Enhanced Voting Techniques
This what they are calling bribes these days?
Mai Naem mobile
I’m kind of surprised they weren’t using Telegram or Signal or even gmail to communicate.
Shalimar
Ummm, if emails are potentially embarrassing, you shouldn’t be saying that shit during work hours if you don’t want to be fired.
Shalimar
@Baud: With Elon and his thousand baby mamas, it’s almost a guarantee. What are the odds he has asked at least one woman on Abbott’s staff to have one of his kids?
H.E.Wolf
@Baud:
Or, just as likely, Sheela-na-gig pics.
like a metaphor
I call him Governor Assbutt
Suzanne
Ten gets you twenty that there’s plenty of discussion around botched penis implant surgery.
Soapdish
I wonder if *these* emails would be published if leaked to TFNYT.
trollhattan
Travel pics from California? [shudder]
pat
Totally not related, but I just finished reading The Ghost Map, by Steven Johnson, about the cholera epidemic in London in 1854, and how Dr. John Snow and Rev. Henry Whitehead discovered how it started, and how it was ended when they took off one pump handle.
I believe someone here recommended it. I requested it from my library. Might have to purchase a copy.
Anyway, every time “miasma” was mentioned, and how it was widely believed at that time that it was the cause of disease (London stank!), I had to think of our HHS being led by a quack, a nit-wit, who can still talk about miasma.
Fascinating book, thank you to whoever recommended it, and I recommend it too!
And when you read the last chapter, the epilogue, you will be thinking COVID!!
Snarki, child of Loki
If Abbott says that the emails are “embarrassing”, but won’t release them, then wild speculation is fully justified. If Abbott doesn’t like the accusations of goat-fuckery and drinking the blood of infants, he can release the emails, otherwise the accusations can be considered TRUE.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Trump wants to signed an executive order that changes the name of soccer to football. So how much did FIFI bribe Trump?
Sure Lurkalot
The seditious six just rubber stamped the dismantling of the Department of Education, a Republican party wet dream since it was created.
If you think a large part of the electorate is basically illiterate and innumerate now, I have a sinking feeling….
Is there another country like the US in the world, one whose leadership and a good part of its citizenry disdain learning, disavow science and objective fact?
Dangerman
@Baud: Dick pics are so yesterday; I’m thinking rub and tug videos.
KenK
@Snarki, child of Loki: Make the sonofabitch deny it!
japa21
@pat:
You should definitely read Tom Levenson’s So Very Small which includes that episode and many more. Excellent read.
Bobby Thomson
For what it’s worth, this looks like boilerplate that probably is included with all of the state’s responses to FOIA requests.
Sure Lurkalot
@pat: Thanks for the reading tip!
If you liked that book, you will definitely enjoy So Very Small by BJer Tom Levenson!
ETA, Japa21 beat me to it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, what exactly is their end game here? Turn the red states into the third world? They want manufacturing to return to the US and that requires a high school level education.
Harrison Wesley
@Sure Lurkalot: I find it remarkable that a country would knowingly and voluntarily regress to primitive ignorance. Kinda glad I’m an Old who won’t have to see too many years of this.
pat
Thanks, So Very Small is next.
Just checked, it is available at the local library!
Three copies! Woot!
gene108
I can’t get worked up about this. It won’t hurt the Texas GOP one bit.
Republican voters want cronyism and corruption.
The Audacity of Krope
I believe the term of art is “opportunity.”
Hoodie
Maybe they promised Elon a new “livestock” breeding program at A&M with an extension office near the Spacex launch facility.
Jay
@Harrison Wesley:
It worked really well for Cambodia,….//
matt
I guess we’re just acting like we don’t have public records laws any more, since we’re too corrupt for them.
Baud
Not clear if this means elections.
eclare
The photo today is gorgeous.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
The Great Cultural Revolution!
Baud
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Apparently Trump’s hero Orban has a Epstine of his own:
Old School
I’m not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure Open Records laws exempt information that the government would rather not release.
Nothing to see here.
Harrison Wesley
@Jay: Those who like this sort of thing will like it very much.
hells littlest angel
JFC. There’s corrupt, and then there’s Texas.
bbleh
Well OBVIOUSLY the Epstein pedophilia ring is now being controlled by Elon Musk — because who else, right? — and OBVIOUSLY it included Abbott, and probably Paxton (divorce on “Biblical” grounds?) and others — it’s CRYSTAL CLEAR! Wake UP, sheeple!!
Harrison Wesley
@hells littlest angel: Florida would like to have a word……
bbleh
@Baud: you mean like MTG showed in a public Congressional hearing?
frosty
@japa21:
I just finished it; got a copy from the library without a terribly long wait. A great read: scientists discovered everything they needed to come up with germ theory in the 1600s (I think) but it took another 200 years, primarily because no one could let go of the concept of miasmas.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Baud:
Well…
Seeing as both Musk and Abbott are dicks, that seems very likely.
Just pointing out the obvious…
Barry
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: “Yes, what exactly is their end game here? Turn the red states into the third world? They want manufacturing to return to the US and that requires a high school level education.”
They lie. About everything.
The Republic of Stupidity
I won’t speak for anyone else here, but any time I hear a public official say “not of legitimate concern to the public” I start getting nervous.
artem1s
he could have stopped at ‘trade secrets’ but he couldn’t keep his mouth from running as GQPers are wont to do. ABP, Always Be Projecting.
mrmoshpotato
I bet Greg sucked more South African Nazi ass than thought humanly possible.
Jay
bsky.app/profile/cwebbonline.com/post/3ltwo7uw5ek2l
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Abbott and Musk are both dicks, so yes.
NotMax
@frosty
And yet Dr. John Gorrie’s attempt to counteract miasma eventually resulted in air conditioning.
WTFGhost
Wasn’t it Abbot who tried to kill poor and working class people during Covid-19? I’m sure he’ll try to blame Costello, but I’m pretty sure it’s him.
Man. And he can be embarrassed? No… no I don’t believe it. Not without direct photographic proof. Pics or it didn’t happen.
mrmoshpotato
@Soapdish:
If one email is a risotto recipe, then YES!
WTFGhost
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: They gave him the actual trophy that belongs to the champions. No, not kidding, that actually happened.
mrmoshpotato
@WTFGhost:
Every POS governor who denied the existence of COVID tried to kill poor and working class people.
DeathSantis is responsible for 1 in every 500 Floridian deaths.
And the dog-and-goat-murdering Nazi bitch is responsible for 1 in every 400 South Dakotan deaths.
ETA
Dead girl or live boy.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Abbott and Musktello?
//
(With apologies to Bud and Lou.)
The Audacity of Krope
They were stand-up guys.
artem1s
Any/all of the fundamentalist states. The NIH is being decimated by alchemists and snake oil salesmen.
History of Mathematics
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Bud and Lou don’t deserve that.
Classic!
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Assuming no one else has beat me to this, I suggest the image accompanying this Anne Laurie’s post is a dick pic.
WTFGhost
@pat: I do remember reading about how the old fashioned radiators were intended to be used with open windows, and IIRC, it was to counter miasma. I also remember how similar ideas could be used to help counter Covid-19 – frequent air changes would help sweep aerosols out the windows.
@Sure Lurkalot: Frankly, I’m as glad of that as I can be – I mean, horrible news, but, he’ll eff up even *more* before the midterms. With Medicaid, they’ve tried to slow the pain, but here, he’ll start hurting people next school year, and find out that the DOE is only a bad guy in the diseased minds of right wingers.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: More and more, “manufacturing” requires a lot more than a high school diploma. I mean, this is what’s so horribly blind about poor states that don’t try to push education. You need, like, twelve years of education support, assuming you do everything right, before anyone is even thinking of moving tech (which includes manufacturing) there. You’ll have a hard time getting bids on anything much more complex than a call center.
@matt: Meh. For what it’s worth, this is the type of situation where public records laws tend to strengthen. Until then, people don’t think they need them. Now, they have interest in finding out what’s embarrassing in these documents.
@hells littlest angel: The Late Great Molly Ivins once interviewed a member of the “Lege” about how he’s voting on a bill that will earn him money, if the law passes, and he was all “well, yeah, but I’ll only make a bit of money, not a whole lot.” That’s what passes for honesty in TX. Another time, some Texas pol was found doing favors for a campaign donor, and when she asked, the spokesbeing said “the (pol) doesn’t think it’s proper to match donations to official acts.”
Chief Oshkosh
@pat: I read it a couple of years ago and rec’d it a lot; don’t know I was the one who rec’d it to you. Great book. An example of something that could’ve been very dry, but instead was a rich mystery.
Josie
The Texas Supreme Court is following in the footsteps of our esteemed U.S. Supreme Court.I wish we could figure out a way to rid ourselves of these corrupt judges.
ETA: The quote is from the ProPublica article.
Jay
@WTFGhost:
Good luck with the Call Center jobs. 9/10 people hired by Blue Cross fail out in under a month. You get two weeks training to memorize all their plans, at least to the point where you can look it up in the right one of 10 100 page binders.
As for “Manufacturing”, to be a machinist these days, you need to know how to program and operate “machine vision” and program various CnC milling machines, lathes, etc. Once you have done that, you job is basically loading raw materiel into the machine and perform QA checks on failed parts, (Machine Vision is not 100% accurate).
To be a assembly line worker, you have to be willing to do the same task, over and over, day in and day out, and at the same time, perform visual QA.
It’s not an easy job and it requires more than Grade 12, reading, writing and mechanical/electrical/plumbing skills.
Yes, there will be On the Job Training, but a lot of it these days is video’s from HR, so your “training session” may not apply to your job.
piratedan
bet those fuckers cashed the check and didn’t offer a refund…..
West of the Rockies
I’m surprised we don’t have red states trying to tariff blue states. Sounds like something Texas would try to do to California.
pat
@Chief Oshkosh: Yes, it covered a lot. I had heard about the pump, not sure where, it was a long time ago. Maybe my education as a med tech back in the 60’s?
I’ve also been reading about fossils. The Story of Life in 25 Fossils by Donald Prothero. Absolutely amazing how many fossils have been identified.
Or named, actually. Hehe.
Ryan
Did y’all stop pushing posts to the RSS feed? I A Old, need RSS.
Marc
@West of the Rockies: Or maybe something California should do to red states to make up for the federal emergency and education funding the state is no longer getting.
sab
@Sure Lurkalot: Remember that your e reader store thinks that Levenson’s first name is Thomas.
Betty
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Apparently they gave him a gold-plated trophy worth over $200,000. I thought it was a joke when I first saw the story that he kept it from the championship game he went to see.
Nelle
@pat: I don’t know who recommended Ghost Maps, but I bought a used copy and it is waiting there for me to read it. Thanks for endorsing the purchase.
Betty
@Jay: I guess tomatoes aren’t groceries.
pat
@Nelle:
There were so many pages that I wanted to fold a corner or underline something. Just because I had heard all that before and here it was all written out.
In detail…..
mayim
@pat:
I know I’ve mentioned it as a fascinating book but others have as well, I think.
Fascinating tidbit: the various reports mentioned are available at archive.org, including the supplement to the main report that detailed who died in which room in the houses where people died of cholera.
Another book that offers a window into 19th century life is The Sea Captain’s Wife by Martha Hodes. Writing style often veers into doctoral dissertation adapted for popular paperback but the story is worth plowing on. Northern couple moves south around the Civil War; widow moves back north, extremely poor. She meets/marries an African-Caribbean sea captain and moves to his home ~ where she ends up financially secure pretty much for the first time in her life.
I’ve just starting a book called The Birth Certificate: an American history by Susan Pearson. The first couple chapters are drawing me in.
Geminid ,
@Baud: I think that is a faction of the UTJ party and has only 3 or 4 Knesset members. The government coalition has 68 total, so this could be brinksmanship over the draft bill that Netanyahu has not yet presented. It would set the terms for military service by the Ultra-Orthodox.
Meanwhile, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir threaten to bolt with their 14 MKs if there is a ceasefire in Gaza.
The Knesset starts a two-month summer recess Friday so it could be that Netanyahu is trying to keep these balls in the air until it’s too late for a vote of no-confidence. The cabinet can approve the ceasefire during recess.
But only thing I’m sure of is that Israeli politics are complicated as hell.
AKA The Man
@pat: that is worth a read for sure!
catclub
I am guessing the Texas GOP offered to suck his dick whenever asked.
catclub
@WTFGhost: FIFA pays its bribes in plain sight.
Trump is happy to take them.
vigilhorn
@Jay: Doesn’t Trump realize where catsup comes from?