Chris Gober, the Republican running for Texas's open 10th Congressional District seat and the former director and chief lawyer of Elon Musk's America PAC, has quietly deleted sections of his campaign website that promoted artificial intelligence dominance and election integrity — and Musk's name no longer appears anywhere on the site at all.
The deletions, first reported by Axios, removed a section titled Ensuring America's AI Dominance, which had argued the campaign must win the global AI race while preserving rural character and investing in infrastructure that benefits local communities. The site also scrubbed a section called Defend Election Integrity, which had claimed Democrats made unconstitutional attempts to rig elections and deny the will of the American people. Gober is making his first run for Congress in a GOP-friendly district that stretches from west of Austin to near Houston.
Gober led Musk's America PAC as its director and chief lawyer, directing more than $260 million in spending in 2024 to support Donald Trump's presidential campaign, according to Axios. Campaign spokesperson Zach Gregory told the outlet the campaign streamlined its website to focus on the issues driving the race's final weeks, and said the campaign stands by every position it has taken, including on AI, rural communities, infrastructure and election integrity.
Musk Money Still Flowing Into the Race
Even as Musk's name disappears from the campaign's own messaging, his financial fingerprints remain. SpaceX's political action committee cut two $5,000 checks to Gober's campaign in the third quarter of 2026, per campaign finance filings cited by Axios. Musk himself has committed roughly $366 million to the 2026 election cycle across at least 40 races nationwide, according to CNBC.
Outside spending tied to AI interests has also poured into Gober's campaign, though the exact figure is disputed. Axios reported that American Mission, a political action committee critical of AI restrictions, has spent about $750,000 supporting Gober's campaign, while The American Prospect put the same group's spending through the primary at $747,000. The group has also backed other Texas Republican congressional candidates, spending about $511,000 supporting Jessica Steinmann and almost $130,000 supporting Jace Yarbrough, according to Houston Public Media.
Gober's law firm has also represented an organization tied to a data-center project in rural New Mexico, the same Axios report noted. That detail lands at a politically sensitive moment: a majority of Texans oppose data centers, according to recent University of Texas polling, which is a dynamic the Texas campaign is navigating carefully.
An Open Seat After 11 Terms
The seat became open after U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, who represented the 10th Congressional District for 11 terms, announced he would not seek reelection. The district heavily favors Republicans — it went 60-38 for Trump in 2024, per the American Prospect — and GOP turnout outpaced Democratic turnout in the March primary, with Republicans casting 75,204 votes compared to 53,793 for Democrats. Gober won the Republican primary with 38,541 votes, besting nine other candidates, while his Democratic opponent, Caitlin Rourk, an Army veteran and former Dell Technologies communications specialist, received 32,716 votes in her own primary, according to Axios's earlier reporting.
Rourk is now running a campaign ad titled Elon's Lawyer to tie Gober directly to Musk, per Axios. An internal consultant memo prepared for her campaign and reviewed by Axios described Gober as potentially uniquely vulnerable because of his ties to figures like Musk. A memo by Change Research cited in that reporting found nearly half of voters were very concerned after learning about Gober's ties to Musk, Republican super PACs and lobbying contracts.
Data Centers Emerge as a Statewide Flashpoint
The website scrub comes amid a broader statewide shift on data centers and AI infrastructure. An August University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll found 57% of Texas voters opposed building a data center in their community, compared with 30% in support, according to the Texas Politics Project. Texas Republicans were nearly evenly split, with 45% supporting local construction and 43% opposed, but rural voters opposed it by a wide 60% to 25% margin in the same poll. Recent UT polling also found corruption is a top concern among voters statewide.
That rural unease is already reshaping Texas politics. The Texas Tribune reported that some rural voters are revolting against Republicans over data centers, power lines and other fallout from rapid development, and that Gov. Greg Abbott — after previously declaring Texas would become the epicenter of AI development — backtracked and temporarily paused new data-center projects while recommending legislative guardrails on water and power usage.
National polling suggests the backlash extends well beyond Texas. Half of Americans now oppose data centers being built within three miles of their homes, nearly double the 28% who said the same in January, according to POLITICO. The same polling found Americans have grown more likely to oppose candidates who support data-center construction, a reversal from ten months earlier when such candidates received slight support.
