Revolt hits Musk in his own home town as neighbors rise up: 'They're awake now'

Roughly 70,000 of Elon Musk’s neighbors proved Tuesday night that their votes were more powerful than his $225 million, local poll data show and activists say.

Cameron County, the region SpaceX calls home in the Rio Grande Valley, voted overwhelmingly for victors James Talarico, Gina Hinojosa, and a slate of Democratic candidates — even as the world’s richest man demanded his fellow Texans "vote red."

“Elon Musk has money, but we have the power of the people,” said Chriselda Vera, a local organizer. “They’re awake now in Texas. They see our currency is our voting power.”

Talarico was nominated to the U.S. Senate with the help of 69,808 voters from Cameron County while opponent Ken Paxton — the Texas Attorney General Musk funded to the tune of $212 million — won just 30,541 of their votes.

Hinojosa won 68,613 votes in Cameron County while incumbent opponent Gov. Greg Abbott — to whom Musk gave $5.5 million — claimed only 33,101.

Cameron County also helped elect Attorney General Nathan Johnson (D) and a host of down-ballot Democrats. This blue wave in Cameron County was not an assured thing — in the past election, the county split right down the middle.

In 2024, Cameron County delivered 60,991 votes to President Donald Trump and 53,391 to Sen. Ted Cruz.

Kidmus Girma, an organizer with the climate action group Sunrise Movement, told Raw Story he believes Musk’s impact on the local environment played a large role in Cameron County’s blue turn.

For locals, said Girma, it was a question of clean air to breathe and safe water to drink.

“We’ve seen a large amount of people feel activated by these big buildouts,” said Girma. “We won’t just be a backstop for whatever Elon Musk wants to make happen.”

Cameron County rests on Texas’s southern border and is home to the Starbase, an incorporated town where SpaceX runs tests on its Starship rockets and employs roughly 4,000 workers (70 percent local hires). It's also home to Musk's primary residence.

It’s also home to Boca Chica State Park, more than 7,100 acres of which has recently been annexed to a Cameron County city led mostly by SpaceX employees.

Over the past decade, locals have watched Musk buy up large swaths of the state park as his corporation expanded.

Brownsville mom and activist Adhlemy Sanchez began to cry as she told Raw Story about Musk's power in her community — and what it might mean for her 3- and 6-year-old daughters.

"It’s a little scary — especially for my girls," Sanchez said. "I want my girls to have the same access I have. The same luxuries I had, to have clean water."

Sanchez began advocating years ago to stop the nearby Milwhite industrial plant's grinding mill from covering her community in a white powder she said gave her nosebleeds and headaches and covered her then 2-month-old baby in rashes.

The Brownsville mom successfully fought to close down the plant in 2024 — but her days of activism weren't done.

Initially, Sanchez welcomed SpaceX to Brownsville on the promise that it would bring jobs to a community that largely lives paycheck to paycheck.

But once again, Sanchez watched Texas lawmakers dole out handouts to corporations while her community in Brownsville waited for jobs that never materialized.

"Elon Musk is moving so fast making these contracts that look too good to be true and often are," said Sanchez. "What jobs are you going to provide when people don’t have skill sets?"

And once again, Sanchez has been forced to fear for her children's health as Musk blasts rockets into the sky that land in the waters off Boca Chica beach — which might soon fall under his control.

'It just makes you question, the next time we go to the beach, how much longer do we have?" she said. "The wildlife here is — was — intact…for generations. That’s something we fight for."

That's why Sanchez spent the past months having "hard conversations" with friends, family and neighbors, urging them to learn about the candidates, register to vote and turn out on Election Day.

"We do have a majority Latino population that don’t know how to vote," said Sanchez. "I’m not oblivious. I know SpaceX is not going to suddenly move out. But I’m hopeful there's going to be more accountability, more regulation, more people power to save access to what is part of us."

In her campaign, Hinojosa promised Texans she would make that happen, promising a moratorium on AI data centers and accusing Abbott of assisting Musk to change Texas law to increase his profits — and eventually taking the governor to court.

Hinojosa filed a lawsuit on Oct. 19 demanding access to unredacted communications between Abbott’s office and Musk companies regarding state tax breaks, broadband internet projects and data center development.

Talarico has also vowed to crack down on AI companies that he said are able to build data centers without community input, and called out Musk in his acceptance speech Tuesday night.

“We must get big money out of our politics so no billionaire or trillionaire can buy our elections,” Talarico said. “We must unrig this economic system that only benefits the top 1 percent.”

Musk’s public response to Talarico’s and Hinojosa’s victories has been limited to vague criticism on X.

“Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” wrote Musk early Thursday morning. He later added, “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time.”

But in Texas, Musk’s neighbors are taking a less reserved tone.

“We have a senator that cannot be bought,” Vera told Raw Story. “We have a state that cannot be bought.”

"I’m really filled with joy," added Sanchez. "I’m proud, absolutely. I feel like even with the little bit of work that we did, it was enough."