Gov. Abbott's office redacts pages of emails about Elon Musk
26 comments
·November 19, 2025criddell
notahacker
Elon's a large employer in Texas in industries with legal hurdles so it's unsurprising he ends up in email exchanges with senior politicians there, even more so since he's decided he's a political figure. He also has a... interesting line in quips, opinions and personal remarks which I imagine Abbott is happy to play along with when he's thinking more how much a friendlier relationship with Elon can boost his personal profile, state employment figures and bank balance and less about what other people reading it might think.
So yeah, there's probably some genuinely not-for-public consumption stuff about Tesla/SpaceX future business initiatives and a whole lot of racism and snarky comments about people that are supposed to be political allies...
Edit: wondering if the downvote brigade are supposed to be signalling that Elon doesn't have any legitimate reason to start conversations about his companies with Texas politicians or that private conversations with Elon would never end up segueing into something that might be embarrassing. Not sure which of those opinions is more ridiculous really...
normie3000
> industries with legal hurdles so it's unsurprising he ends up in email exchanges with senior politicians
Why are politicians involved with legal issues? Is this correct?
manquer
Not legal issues in the sense issues contested in court, rather they mean to say the combination of regulations and compliance to state laws that any business particularly a large one with significant physical footprint[1] would need to comply with. Politicians are in the business of passing and enforcing those laws or giving exceptions to compliance.
[1] A lot of less permits would be needed for 10,000 member software company compared to a rocket launch provider or a manufacturing unit.
myrion
Because politicians make laws, and those affect the "legal hurdles" that companies need to deal with.
ceejayoz
Who do you imagine writes laws?
kelseyfrog
What I'm reading is that if you want to preserve confidentiality, you can mix trade secrets into your communication. Sounds like an easy thing with no downside.
inerte
Yes, unfortunately... the right outcome here should be corporate lawyers saying "companies should NOT add trade secrets when talking to the government because it will leak", but instead the public can't know what the government is doing because it might hurt a company. US 101, doing what's best for business over its people.
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perihelions
Epstein's email footer throws the whole spaghetti at the wall—confidentiality, attorney-client privilege, securities regulations, and copyright law, too.
> "The information contained in this communication is confidential, may be attorney-client privileged, may constitute inside information, and is intended only for the use of the addressee. It is the property of JEE"
> "Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this communication or any part thereof is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately by return e-mail or by e-mail to jeevacation@gmail.com, and destroy this communication and all copies thereof, including all attachments. copyright -all rights reserved"
teeray
sigh and it should be the opposite. Divulging trade secrets into records that can be FOIA-ed should be tantamount to publicly releasing them.
notahacker
I mean, without the trade secret exemption that's basically any written exchange with government....
I'm not seeing much to be gained by making it impossible for governments to do due diligence with many suppliers because they'd rather turn down the contract than broadcast such information to their competitors (not sure it'd jive particularly well with public company control over what is and isn't public information either)...
cogman10
The upside is it stops corruption.
The fact is, spacex does not have any "trade secrets" that they should be dropping into communication with a government official when speaking about policy or a future contract.
It's not like Musk would be dropping in things like vendors or material composition when talking to Abbott.
The upside of working with the government for a contract is that usually means a lot of money. The price should be full transparency as that's our tax dollars. Secret government communications should pretty much always be seen as highly suspicious.
nis0s
Intimate and embarrassing, Musk, and trade secrets makes me think it’s about sex dolls.
BurningFrog
Might say more about you...
sjsdaiuasgdia
> Abbott’s and Musk’s lawyers fought their release, arguing they would reveal trade secrets, potentially “intimate and embarrassing” exchanges or confidential legal and policymaking discussions
Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't have used your government email account to have intimate and embarrassing exchanges? That thought come to mind, Mr. Abbott?
RankingMember
Yep, fuck that- government email = public record. Redaction should require a damn higher bar than "oh that's too intimate/embarrassing".
SilverElfin
Is there any avenue to validate the claims of the governor’s office, that these things must be protected? Are there for example, firms that will look at the unredacted content as a third party with confidentiality agreements, to certify that it is correctly being redacted? Otherwise it feels like they could easily be hiding any number of unethical or outright criminal activities this way.
cogman10
There actually is a legal process for just this sort of situation.
It's called an "In camera review". Assuming someone sues Abbott over this, then a judge can take the documents in question, look over them, and make a determination on whether or not Abbott's claims are true.
That ruling can be appealed to higher courts.
stocksinsmocks
If there were a lawsuit it’s possible that the original communications could be obtained by court order. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happened eventually.
The FBI and friends can also use their means of unlawful surveillance and leak the contents to politically aligned publishers.
My guess is that they discussed a lot of horse trading too candidly.
m-hodges
> Are there for example, firms that will look at the unredacted content as a third party with confidentiality agreements, to certify that it is correctly being redacted?
No. But there are investigative reporters.
ceejayoz
Not entirely accurate.
The government uses "special masters" or "taint teams" if there's a scenario like this, at times. One was involved in the Trump Mar-a-Lago case.
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/resources/news...
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johnea
I'm sure it would be embarrassing, if the public discovered just how much the state of texas, and governor abbot, were kissing elon's ass...
> potentially “intimate and embarrassing” exchanges
What kinds of things could Musk and Abbott be discussing that could lead to an exchange of intimate messages? The only (non-jokey) thing I can think of would be discussions about the kinds of accommodations Abbott might need at SpaceX or Tesla events due to being paralyzed.