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“Administrators do everything they can to create an enabling environment for the actions they want to take, without scrutiny or accountability of actors like our courts, legislators or others,” he says.
Since taking over Xi, formerly of Twitter, Musk has become one of Trump’s most important allies. supports his campaign financially and lending the full weight of his platform to promote Trump’s talking points during the campaign. He has since sat and pondered meetings with the president-elect and foreign leaders personnel options for the new administration. Other tech leaders took notice, reaching out to Trump donates to the inaugural fund. But before the election other tech companies followed X’s lead in rolling back policies and protections that was previously in place.
For his part, David Greene, senior attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says Meta and other social platforms will likely have to comply with state laws, regardless of location. And moving the staff to Texas doesn’t mean all of its supposed moderation problems will be solved. Prejudice can cut both ways, she says.
“Misinformation is really one of the many, many, many issues that social media platforms have to deal with,” he says. “Having a moderator panel in Texas could also raise concerns about bias. For example, Texas has laws on the books that make it illegal to publish certain information about the availability of abortion services.”
But Benavidez says Texas’ social media law may not be the state’s only appeal. “When a company is either headquartered or does significant business in a state, it allows them to use that state for jurisdiction in future filings,” he said.
In 2023 X filed a lawsuit against the Texas nonprofit Media Matters for Americaclaimed the group disparaged the company by pointing out that hate speech and misinformation went hand in hand with ads on the platform. At the time, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton also announced his office was investigating the organization. A federal judge in Texas He refused to quit in August 2024. X since then changed the terms of service so any lawsuit against the company must be filed in Texas. Federal ones should be brought to the Northern District of Texas, widely viewed as friendly to Musk’s interests. (For example, according to the information provided by the judge in the Media Matters case he bought and sold shares (At Musk’s Tesla, earlier in the year, before the suit was brought.)
of methane terms of serviceUnlike the community rules, which remain the same for now, binding disputes must be resolved either in the Northern District of California or at the state level in San Mateo County. But that may change.
“The legislative environment, the judicial environment, the gubernatorial environment in Texas is incredibly favorable for executives like Musk and now Zuckerberg,” Benavidez said.
Gill argues that the regulatory environment in Texas is similar to what companies believe the national regulatory environment will look like under the new Trump administration.
“I think they’re looking ahead and seeing an environment that’s going to be dominated by a conservative-leaning and kind of extremist administration,” he said. “So they’re moving to places where they already have the norm so they can comply.”
Gill also mentions that he is facing the Meta Antitrust lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commissionwhich the friendly administration sees fit to throw. “By making these changes in advance that they hope will appease the administration, they can hope for an amicable settlement in return,” he said.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
