Texas Gov. Greg Abbott Refuses To Share Emails With Elon Musk

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) says he shouldn’t have to turn over emails between himself and billionaire Elon Musk in response to a journalist’s public records request, arguing they include “information that is intimate and embarrassing and not of legitimate concern to the public.”

The Texas Newsroom, as part of an initiative with ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, said it sought out the emails between Abbott and Musk to see what kind of influence Musk had in Texas. During this year’s legislative session, Musk’s lobbyists advocated for nearly a dozen bills that would benefit his companies, and along with that, Abbott also cited Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency as a reason for Texas to launch its own efficiency department.

In April, The Texas Newsroom requested emails between Abbott and Musk and others who have emails associated with Musk’s companies dating back to the fall. The governor’s office said it would take 13 hours to review the emails with a cost of $244.64 to be paid before the work was done. The Texas Newsroom staff said it wrote the check, but after it was cashed, Abbott’s office responded that the emails were actually confidential and asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to keep them private.

Paxton has yet to make a decision, and his office didn’t immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Matthew Taylor, Abbott’s public information coordinator, argued in a letter that the emails should not be released because they included discussion of what Texas offers businesses to encourage them to invest in the state, “privileged attorney-client communications,” and policy-making processes.

Taylor also cited common-law privacy, a legal standard that protects information that a typical person would find “highly objectionable” to publish and is not of public concern.

“The [Office of the Governor] asserts the information … 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 government body,” he wrote.

In a comment to HuffPost, Andrew Mahaleris, Abbott’s press secretary, said The Texas Newsroom’s focus on the “intimate and embarrassing” language in the letter is “purposefully misleading.”

“The reporter knows full well that the language used comes from a Supreme Court of Texas opinion half a century old — with over 10,000 Office of Attorney General opinions applying those same common law privacy protections,” Mahaleris said. “Texans and Texas businesses who disclose confidential and privileged information to state government should feel confident that their information will be protected.”