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Texas state Representative Gene Wu said on Sunday that the new Democratic majority in Texas wants Elon Musk investigated and prosecuted, declaring in a television interview that "the word is called prosecution" and that Musk has found a way to break or bend "every single sacred rule we have."
Wu, a Houston Democrat who chairs the Texas House Democratic Caucus, was speaking on MS NOW on Sunday, November 8, days after Democrats won control of the Texas House in the November 3 midterm elections. He was responding to a clip of Senator Ted Cruz, who had described the Democrats' plans as "persecution."
"Look, earlier you played that clip of Ted Cruz. He said the word persecution. I think he's got the wrong word," Wu said. "The word is called prosecution. It is when we believe that people have done things that are illegal or wrong or unethical, we investigate and we see if there has been wrongdoing."
"Every single sacred rule we have, he has found some way to break it or bend it. And we're tired of it," Wu continued. "Like everywhere that Elon Musk goes in Texas, whether it's SpaceX, whether it's xAI, whatever it is, there is controversy and illegality that follows it everywhere."
The remarks land as Democrats take power in Texas after the midterm elections. Gina Hinojosa defeated Governor Greg Abbott to become governor-elect, Democrats won control of the Texas House, and Nathan Johnson won the race for state attorney general. Johnson told NBC News last week that he intends to investigate Musk, saying the billionaire has "demonstrated his disregard for the public interest" and an interest in "pay-to-play," and that he plans to examine whether SpaceX unfairly benefited from a state grant programme designed to expand rural broadband. Hinojosa has sued Abbott for unredacted access to more than 1,100 pages of his communications with Musk, and has said Musk's companies received $1.7 billion in state property tax breaks after he donated to Abbott's re-election campaign.
Musk, who spent nearly $500 million backing Republican candidates in the midterm elections, responded to Wu on Sunday evening on X, writing: "Gene Wu is the Beria of Texas," alongside an illustration of Lavrentiy Beria, the Soviet secret police chief under Joseph Stalin. Musk had warned before the election that Democrats who came after him would face a fight, writing on X on October 21: "Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them."
No charges have been filed against Musk, and no finding of wrongdoing has been made. The remarks from Wu and Johnson are pledges to investigate, not prosecutions. President Donald Trump has said he would consider preemptive pardons for Musk and other allies if he believed they needed protection from investigations, but a presidential pardon would cover only federal offences and would not stop a state investigation in Texas. In Congress, House Democrats led by incoming Oversight Committee chairman Robert Garcia have separately signalled plans to investigate Musk's role running the Department of Government Efficiency, his companies' federal contracts and his part in restricting satellite communications Ukraine's military relies on.