When Elon Musk said On twitter Last month he planned to vote for the Republicans and predicted that Democrats would run a “dirty trick campaign against me.” He received a warm response from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
“Trust me when I say’OK’,” Paxton said. Tweet On May 24, he won the Republican primary, which was injured for reelection, despite being charged with fraud in state court for fraudulent activity by a former aide.
This week, Mr. Paxton once again agreed with Mr. Musk.The Attorney General said Texas had begun an investigation I visited Twitter and asked the company to provide information about an automated account that could spread spam to the service. Paxton announced shortly after Musk, who agreed to buy Twitter for $ 44 billion, threatened to withdraw from the blockbuster deal because he refused to disclose the number of fake accounts on the platform.
The move was in line with Republican Paxton’s playbook, which was renowned for supporting former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 elections. The 59-year-old woman has long been familiar with the spotlight and has been featured regularly on Fox News, including opposition to the Biden administration over immigration policy and the Texas municipality over pandemic rules. It is a hot topic in the lawsuit.
But starting a Twitter survey isn’t just about getting attention. It could also bring political benefits to Mr. Paxton.
The Attorney General has recently called on conservative voters who believe that social media platforms are suppressing the voice of the right wing to love themselves. When Twitter banned Mr. Trump after the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, Paxton asked the company to elaborate on how to keep and delete posts. Twitter was unable to challenge the court request.
The study could also bring Paxton closer to Musk, the world’s wealthiest man who runs electric car maker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX. Musk moved from California to Texas in 2020. In December, Tesla relocated its headquarters to the Austin area and is building a factory that promises to hire thousands of people. SpaceX also has facilities in Brownsville, Texas. Painted his portrait For murals in downtown.
Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican political consultant who has been involved in the campaign in Texas, including Senator John Cornyn and Paxton’s wife Angela, is a member of the state legislature. “Big Tech makes up the bulk of the conversation on the right.”
A spokesman refused to make Mr. Paxton available for the interview. Twitter declined to comment, and Musk did not respond to the request for comment.
Former Republican parliamentarian Paxton, who grew a conservative grassroots Republican, was first elected Attorney General in 2014. He promised to fight the Affordable Care Act and defend Texas’s voter identification law.
However, he has spent almost all his time as Attorney General suffering from criminal accusations of illegal activity, including criminal accusations of securities fraud since 2015. He invests in the company, but does not tell them that the company will pay him. The case has not yet been tried.
Last year, many of Paxton’s top aides were themselves conservatives, whistleblowers, and bribes, abuses of power, and other potential criminal acts related to Austin real estate investors. I blamed you. These accusations against the FBI have launched a federal investigation that still rests on Mr. Paxton’s head. He denied cheating in both cases.
Still, Mr Paxton won the Republican primary last month, cleverly defeating political dynasty member Land Commissioner George P. Bush. He did so by partly playing Texas politics correctly, which was his great talent.
Paxton joined Trump in an attempt to overturn the outcome of the 2020 elections and scammed Trump’s lost state. Paxton attended a rally in Washington on January 6, 2021 with thousands of people, some of whom raided the US Capitol. Last year, Mr. Trump supported Mr. Paxton and helped him overcome his scandal and pass the Republican primary.
Mr. Paxton echoed the former president in another way: by attacking tech companies. In 2020, Paxton’s office filed an antitrust proceeding against Google with the addition of nine other states. The proceedings alleged that the Internet giant abused control over an opaque system that delivers ads online.
After the January 6 riots, Paxton sent investigation requests not only to Twitter, but also to Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google, asking for details on content moderation practices.
Twitter counterattacked. In a March 2021 filing disputing Mr. Paxton’s request, the company “threate, harassed, and targeted Paxton in order to exercise its First Amendment rights to moderate the platform. “I’m illegally abusing his authority,” he said. Twitter’s objection was dismissed by a federal judge as premature. The Court of Appeals ruled against Twitter in March.
When Paxton’s office announced the latest inquiries to Twitter, the service’s automated accounts “not only reduce the quality of the user experience on the platform, but also increase the value of the company and the cost of doing business with it. There is a possibility. ” In the process, it harms the Texans. Officials have asked Twitter to give a detailed record of “illegal” accounts on the platform every month since 2017.
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“I have a duty to protect the Texans if Twitter misrepresents the number of fake accounts to make money,” Paxton said in a statement.
The investigation repeated a letter from Mr. Musk’s lawyer on Twitter on Monday. He said the company “refused” to provide information about fake accounts. The lack of disclosure was “a clear and serious breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement,” the lawyer wrote, giving Mr. Musk the right to terminate the agreement.
Twitter then decided to allow Mr. Musk access to a stream of tweets posted on the site, a person with knowledge of the decision said Wednesday.
Mr. Paxton does not seem to have anything to do with Mr. Musk. However, Texas politicians have held courts against millionaires for years and have cheered as his company expanded in the state.
Governor Greg Abbott, a frequent Twitter user, publicly supports Mr. Musk’s efforts to acquire the company. “Take Twitter to Texas and join Tesla, SpaceX and The Boring Company,” Abbott said on Twitter in a message to Musk in April.
Still, Texas political operatives said he suspected that Mr. Paxton’s Twitter investigation would bring Mr. Musk (or his money) to the state’s Republicans.
“It’s hard to imagine Elon being politically involved so far,” said Matt Makowiack, political consultant and chairman of the Travis County Republican Party, including Austin.
Democrats in Texas attacked Paxton’s Twitter investigation, which was announced less than two weeks after the murder of 19 elementary school students and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas.
“This is distracting,” said Rochelle Garza, a civil rights lawyer and Democratic candidate for the Attorney General who opposes Mr. Paxton. “This is what he does in his office. He distracts from the real problems people care about.”
Garza said: Instead, he’s chasing a Twitter bot. “