Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa said on Thursday that she had asked state officials to take no action on public land near SpaceX’s Starbase during her transition, Bloomberg reported. At her first news conference since defeating Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday, Hinojosa said she spoke to the head of the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department that morning to “request that no action be taken” during her transition to power, according to Bloomberg’s report as quoted by Political Wire.
The same two sessions cut the market value of Elon Musk’s two listed companies by $450.3 billion, by our arithmetic from official closing prices and the share counts on each company’s latest 10-Q. SpaceX fell from about $1,919 billion at the 3 November close to about $1,684 billion on 5 November; Tesla fell from about $1,575 billion to about $1,360 billion.
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The key insight: Texas Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa asked state officials to take no action on public land near SpaceX’s Starbase during her transition, Bloomberg and Click2Houston reported. By our arithmetic from Nasdaq closes and 10-Q share counts, SpaceX and Tesla lost $450.3 billion of market value between the 3 November and 5 November closes.
KPRC Click2Houston reported that the issue involves concerns over the potential transfer of state-owned land near SpaceX’s Starbase operations in Cameron County. It said The Texas Tribune had previously reported that a draft agenda for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission included a discussion about the possible disposition of approximately 1,300 acres of public land, and that the item was later removed from the final agenda.
Hinojosa said she had personally contacted the department’s executive director, confirmed the matter was not on Thursday’s agenda and requested that no action be taken during the transition, Click2Houston reported. “The Valley is so important to me as the place I am from, and I will never forget it,” she said. She did not say whether the department had agreed or what her administration might do once in office. She is scheduled to be sworn in on 19 January 2027.
SpaceX and Tesla market value at the 3 November close (election day) and the 5 November close. Source: Nasdaq official closes; shares outstanding from each company’s 10-Q cover as of 15 October 2026. Market values are our arithmetic.
CNBC reported that SpaceX and Tesla shares declined by about 9% and 11%, respectively, on Thursday afternoon, with investors concerned that Musk could face new congressional probes and his companies stricter regulation after the midterm elections. CNBC put the combined loss at over $420 billion since Tuesday’s close, and at about $456 billion by the close of business on Thursday.
Our own count uses the Nasdaq closing prices: SpaceX closed at $123.98 on 5 November, down 8.78% on the day and 12.26% from $141.31 on 3 November; Tesla closed at $344.13, down 10.66% on the day and 13.64% from $398.50. Multiplied by 13.58 billion SpaceX shares (Class A plus Class B) and 3.95 billion Tesla shares, the two-session loss is $235.4 billion for SpaceX and $214.9 billion for Tesla, or $450.3 billion in all. On 4 November the pair had closed down $126 billion, as we reported in Tesla and SpaceX Close Down $126B the Day After the Vote.
CNBC posted its report at 21:49 UTC on 5 November: Tesla and SpaceX lost over $420 billion in combined market cap after the midterms.
CNBC cited a Deutsche Bank note saying, “While policy is naturally hard to predict, we could envision SpaceX facing some incremental headwinds in this type of backdrop.” The analysts wrote that SpaceX’s Texas compute capacity could now be at risk of delays, according to CNBC. Reuters reported that more than half of SpaceX’s third-quarter sales came from renting out computing capacity, and that Musk announced plans in October for Terafab, a joint Tesla-SpaceX chip complex in Texas that would cost up to $119 billion.
As we read it, the request moves the election from votes to procedure: the first test is a land decision near SpaceX’s launch site, not a new law.
As we read the closes, both Musk companies fell by similar shares, about 12% to 14% in two sessions; CNBC and Reuters attributed the declines to investor concerns about probes and regulation, alongside a broader tech sell-off.
Gina Hinojosa, Texas Governor-elect, via Bloomberg, 5 November 2026
“request that no action be taken”
Three Implications
FOR SPACEX A possible sale of about 1,300 acres near Starbase, discussed on a draft agenda, now faces the incoming governor’s request for no action.
FOR TESLA AND SPACEX HOLDERS The pair lost $450.3 billion of market value in two sessions, by our arithmetic.
FOR AI BUILDERS IN TEXAS Deutsche Bank analysts wrote that SpaceX’s Texas compute capacity could face delays, CNBC reported.
The framework says: “The structural bottleneck isnโt computing, itโs electrons.”
As we read it, Texas added a permission layer to the power one: from 19 January 2027, state land and approvals near the sites pass to a governor who campaigned on data-center limits. The framework itself does not discuss this election.
What Is Not Established
Bloomberg’s full article was not readable to us; its details come from the passages quoted by Political Wire and from Click2Houston’s report of the same news conference. Neither report says the state agreed to Hinojosa’s request or that any sale was scheduled; Click2Houston reported the item had been removed from the final agenda. We have not seen a SpaceX or Tesla comment. CNBC’s and Reuters’ explanations of the share moves are their reporting of investor concerns, not company statements. Our market values use share counts as of 15 October, so they can differ from other outlets’ totals.
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Texas’s governor-elect asked state officials to take no action on land near SpaceX’s Starbase during her transition, while SpaceX and Tesla lost $450.3 billion of market value in two sessions after the election, by our arithmetic.
A note on sourcing. Hinojosa’s request comes from Bloomberg (as quoted by Political Wire) and KPRC Click2Houston’s report of her 5 November news conference. Share moves and analyst comments come from CNBC and Reuters. Closing prices are Nasdaq’s; share counts are from the SpaceX and Tesla 10-Q covers as of 15 October 2026. The market values and the $450.3 billion two-session loss are our arithmetic.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
