Governor-Elect Hinojosa Says Texas Can Have 'a Strong Working Relationship' With Elon Musk's Companies - 'On Our Terms' - and SpaceX Shares Jumped 8.9 Percent
Two days after unseating Greg Abbott, Gina Hinojosa drew the line her administration will walk with the state's most powerful businessman: cooperation, on Texas's terms. 'We can have a strong working relationship with Elon Musk and his companies,' she said. On Friday, SpaceX shares rose 8.91 percent.
Texas's incoming governor and its most famous businessman are feeling each other out in public. Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, who defeated Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday, has said explicitly that she is willing to find common ground with Elon Musk and his companies even as she pursues stricter regulation, The Motley Fool reports. 'We can have a strong working relationship with Elon Musk and his companies,' Hinojosa said - with the condition, as she put it, that the relationship be 'on our terms.' 'We have always been a pro-business state,' she added, saying Texas can maintain a 'strong economy, strong industry' while introducing additional protections for residents.
The market heard it. SpaceX shares closed the week up sharply on Friday - $134.64 a share, up $11.02, or 8.91 percent, as of Friday afternoon trading - as investors weighed what a Hinojosa administration means for the company's Starbase rocket complex near Boca Chica in South Texas. The distinction the governor-elect is drawing matters to that math: her best-known technology fight, the data-center slowdown she described to CNN on Thursday, concerns new project approvals and the rules around them - electricity costs, water, tax incentives and community say - and there is no confirmed statewide policy cancelling previously approved projects or shutting existing facilities, the Fool notes.
Starbase's future runs through regulators either way. Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration opened a new environmental review of SpaceX's proposed expansion at the site: the company is seeking authorization for up to 100 Starship launches and 200 landings a year, with a later phase that could eventually reach 456 launches and 912 landings annually. Numbers like that are why predictability is the industry's currency - and why a governor-elect saying 'working relationship' and 'on our terms' in the same breath is being read as an opening offer rather than a door closing.
The negotiation will not be hers alone. Hinojosa takes office on January 19, 2027, facing a divided Legislature - Democrats controlling the Texas House, Republicans retaining the Senate - so any new framework for data centers, land or launches will need votes from both parties. This station has already reported her request to pause SpaceX land talks while her team gets in place. Friday's message adds the other half of the position: the talks can happen, the rockets can fly - under rules her administration intends to write.
