Hinojosa sues to review confidential emails between Musk, Abbott

AUSTIN (Nexstar) — State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic candidate for Texas governor, is suing her gubernatorial opponent in order to review more than a thousand pages of communication between Greg Abbott’s office and Elon Musk’s representatives, which were deemed confidential due to their “embarrassing” and “intimate” nature.

“Nobody here is accusing Greg Abbott of having a torrid love affair with Elon Musk,” said Hinojosa in front of the Travis County courthouse Monday morning. “What this is about is we have the world’s only trillionaire getting massive tax breaks from this governor after giving him over $500,000 in campaign contributions.”

Abbott, after voting in Del Valle on Monday morning, called the suit an act of desperation from Hinojosa.

“What Gina is trying to do more than anything else is to try to get attention for her and her campaign,” Abbott said to reporters. “This election has slipped through her hands and she doesn’t have any ability to do anything else other than to grasp at straws to get attention.”

Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary, called the lawsuit baseless and said Hinojosa is abusing her official capacity as an outgoing lawmaker to generate headlines for political reasons. The suit was filed on the same day early voting for the midterms began.

“The lawsuit is baseless and nothing more than an act of desperation,” Mahaleris said in a statement. “Texans see this for what it is: a political stunt.”

The documents Hinojosa is after were part of a public records request filed by The Texas Newsroom in 2025. The governor’s office objected to releasing the communications on several grounds, including “the state’s competitive business interests, attorney-client privilege, and deliberative-process privilege,” according to Hinojosa’s lawsuit.

In August 2025, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sustained the objections but directed the governor’s office to release some of the requested materials. The governor’s office produced 1,374 pages to the Texas Newsroom, but only around 200 pages were not redacted, according to the lawsuit.

Hinojosa wrote a letter to the governor’s office on Sep. 29 requesting to review the redacted information and cited a Texas law that allows members of the legislature to review confidential documents for “legislative purposes.”

However, Hinojosa could be required to sign a confidentiality agreement that would bar her from speaking about the content in the documents publicly. She offered to sign such an agreement in her letter to Abbott.

“The people of Texas and the people of House District 49 are concerned over the growing power of tech giants in Texas regarding our tax dollars, resources, and data,” reads Hinojosa’s letter. “In light of the expanding influence of tech CEOs in Texas and the close working relationship between government and the corporate tech industry, transparency is essential for accountability, which is why I’m writing.”

Hinojosa said she received a letter from Abbott’s office denying her request, according to the lawsuit.

Musk has multiple companies stationed in Texas, including SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla, X, The Boring Company, Neuralink, and xAI. Musk also contributed $500,000 to Abbott’s campaign, along with another $250,000 contribution to Speaker of the Texas House Dustin Burrows, in 2026, according to records from the Texas Ethics Commission.

“People have a right to know, and I, as their representative, have the right to see them,” Hinojosa said.

In her filing, Hinojosa lists examples of Musk’s companies receiving grants and tax breaks from Texas, including:

Hinojosa is requesting a temporary restraining order to prohibit the governor’s office from blocking her access to the documents.