After moving to Texas about four years ago, Elon Musk had largely avoided getting involved in the state’s messy political fights, suggesting in 2021 that he would prefer to “stay out of politics” all together.
Since then, however, Mr. Musk has very publicly changed his mind, throwing his weight behind former President Donald J. Trump.
And he has also done so, albeit more quietly, inside of his adopted home state, wading into local election contests in Texas where his sizable contributions can make an even bigger difference.
In September, Mr. Musk gave $1 million to one of the major power players in Austin, Texans for Lawsuit Reform, a group committed to reining in tort lawsuits and the large costs they often impose on businesses. Less than two weeks later, he cut an even larger check, for $2 million, to a political action committee affiliated with the Austin-based group.
That $2 million donation, to Judicial Fairness PAC, has been helping to fund active campaigns to elect Republican judges by arguing that Texas cities are in the grip of a crime wave.
Over the last month, Judicial Fairness PAC has spent nearly $15 million, including more than $6.9 million on advertising and direct mail in support of another political action committee, Stop Houston Murders, according a state filing period that ended Saturday.
“No matter who you support for president,” read one of the mailers sent by Stop Houston Murders, “vote out soft-on-crime Democrat judges.”
Judicial Fairness PAC has also funded similar mailings in Dallas, and is supporting appeals court candidates in the Rio Grande Valley. The effort has received backing from several top Republican donors in Texas.
It was not clear why Mr. Musk decided to lend his support as well. Mr. Musk’s companies are located in several Texas cities, including Austin, Bastrop and Brownsville, but not Houston or Dallas. Among the races targeted by the committee are several seats on an appeals court in South Texas that covers Cameron County, where SpaceX, which is one of Mr. Musk’s companies, is located.
He did not responded to a request for comment on the contributions. In a statement, Lee Parsley, president of Texans for Lawsuit Reform, said that Mr. Musk was “one of hundreds of contributors” to the group. He said the organization would “continue working to make Texas’ civil justice system fair and efficient” and “advocate for the election of a fair judiciary.”
Since moving from California to Texas, Mr. Musk has surrounded himself with a more conservative social circle, including tech entrepreneurs who are active in Texas state politics.
And he has struck up a friendship with Dick Weekley, a wealthy Houston-based homebuilder who co-founded Texans for Lawsuit Reform in the 1990s.
“If he’s interested in having a conservative state legislature and judiciary, that donation to T.L.R. certainly makes sense,” said Mark McCaig, a conservative activist based in Houston. “Elon is certainly somebody I want on my team.”
Mr. Weekley and two of his top political aides, Ryan Dumais and Denis Calabrese, were part of the initial crew that helped Mr. Musk plan his pro-Trump super PAC, America PAC, meeting with Mr. Musk each Friday for up to an hour.
Now, by pouring millions into Texans for Lawsuit Reform and the campaigns it is backing, Mr. Musk appeared to have injected himself into the middle of a protracted battle between factions of the Republican Party in Texas.
The two main factions are a traditional coalition of business-focused conservatives, including Mr. Weekley, and a more religiously conservative, Trump-aligned faction that has been ascendant in the state. They clashed most prominently last year over the impeachment trial of the state’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, who had strong support from the Trump-aligned conservatives; the impeachment was rejected in the Senate.
Each side has been eager for Mr. Musk’s support. Those in Mr. Paxton’s corner welcomed the news, earlier this year, that Mr. Musk had brought in a new crop of political operatives to steer his America PAC, and that Mr. Weekley and his aides at Texans for Lawsuit Reform were no longer working with him.
Mr. Musk, these days, frequently posts on social media about the problems he sees with crime and immigration, two issues that are commonly pushed by Republicans of all stripes in Texas.
One of his first political forays into the state came earlier this year, when Mr. Musk contributed to a group that tried unsuccessfully to oust the Democratic district attorney for Travis County, which includes Austin.
In Houston, Republicans have for several cycles now attempted to retake judicial seats that were lost in a Democratic wave in Houston in 2018.
Judicial Fairness PAC has been supporting Stop Houston Murders since it first became active during the 2022 election, after homicides in the city reached record levels in 2021.
But the numbers have since declined, following a national trend in most major cities. So far this year, Houston has seen fewer homicides than it did at the same point in 2020, the year a surge in crime began during the coronavirus pandemic.
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