SpaceX plans to invest more than $74 billion across two AI supercomputing campuses, one in Texas and one in Arizona.
The Texas facility at Starbase, estimated at over $24 billion, will sit on about 444 acres near Brownsville and generate its own power off the public grid. The project has already created over 3,000 construction jobs.
The roughly $50 billion Arizona campus in Cochise County could scale up to 6 gigawatts, though it still needs county approvals. The Starbase city commission will weigh a property tax break for the Texas project on December 9.
Democrat Vikki Goodwin, who won the Texas lieutenant governor race, unveiled her transition team on Tuesday. It includes two former GOP state senators.
Goodwin takes office Jan. 19 and will work with a Senate where Republicans keep the majority. Patrick has said Senate Republicans should change the chamber's rules, though specifics are still unknown.
Goodwin's top priorities are boosting public education funding and health coverage. She also opposes a full ban on THC, saying it should be regulated instead.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire has ordered the police department to end its joint arrangements with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and he credited the 2026 midterm results for the move. Democrats now hold every statewide post in Texas, along with the state House.
Whitmire said officers will contact ICE only when someone commits an offense punishable by jail time. He hopes the change will rebuild trust and ease fear across the city.
He also noted that he voted against SB 4 when it passed the Senate.
Donald Trump has backed expanding AI across the US, pledging to cooperate with states eager to draw in funding for what he calls Super Intelligence. In a Friday Truth Social post, he said turning that money away would be a blunder.
Days earlier, voters in several states backed local limits on data centres, with nearly two dozen of 41 ballot measures across 10 states looking set to pass on early returns. In Texas, a Democrat who campaigned on a moratorium on new data centres beat Governor Greg Abbott.
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US Politics Daily
