The Texas Newsroom requested records of all correspondence between Governor Greg Abbott and billionaire Elon Musk from their legislative session this year. After initially approving the request and charging the newsroom $244 for the records, Abbott’s office refused to share any documents, stating that the exchanges between Musk and Abbott were too “intimate and embarrassing” to be released.
“Section 552.101 encompasses the doctrine of common-law privacy, which protects information that is … highly intimate or embarrassing, the publication of which would be highly objectionable to a reasonable person and not of legitimate concern to the public,” a letter from Abbott’s counsel read.
“Embarrassment” is a ludicrous reason to block the public release of messages between one of the country’s most powerful Republican governors and the richest man in the world, who has plenty of his own political motivations. And as ProPublica notes, that “common law privacy” doctrine is usually only levied in situations that involve highly personal information, health data, or children, not to very wealthy, public, and powerful men.
Were Musk and Abbott chatting about bringing a Grok data center to Texas? Were they planning a trip to Mars? Were they flirting? What could be so embarrassing and intimate about these messages?
We’ll likely never know, as a recent ruling from the Texas Supreme Court has granted more protections to public officials who are asked to divulge public records. Abbott’s office has yet to elaborate.
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