Texas Republican Senator Cruz, who represents the state most identified with the fossil-fuel industry, welcomes Musk to the Republican Party, and has called his
planned acquisition of Twitter Inc. “the most important development for free speech in decades.” He’s ecstatic that Musk has become a Texan to boot.
“When Elon moved to Texas, I spent 45 minutes on the phone with him, urging him to come to Texas and saying, ‘Look, we like jobs in Texas, we don’t want you to shut down, we want you to come here and hire a bunch of Texans,’” Cruz said. In addition to Tesla’s Gigafactory and headquarters in Texas, Musk’s SpaceX has a launch site near the Texas-Mexico border town of Boca Chica.
While there isn’t a full accounting of how many federal lawmakers own Teslas, at least 10 representatives or senators have them, according to a tally by Bloomberg News. Many of the members of what might be called the Tesla caucus are those that might be expected to have interest in a zero-emission car, such as Green New Deal co-author Ocasio-Cortez and Senate Environment and Public Works Committee Chair Tom Carper.
But not all of their Tesla-driving peers fit that profile. Republican Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky is likely the only Tesla Model S driver in Congress with a
“Friends of Coal” license plate. Massie was one of the first Tesla converts in Congress, taking delivery in January 2013 after a lengthy wait.