Republican Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has put Gov. Greg Abbott’s history of accepting data center money on blast, questioning the honesty of rhetoric about the state’s the data center boom.
“He didn’t care,” Miller said in a scathing Facebook post from Saturday that included a picture of Abbott. “When Greg Abbott put out the welcome mat for big data centers, he knew the problems it would cause, but he took their money anyway.”
Miller, who’s served three-terms, lost in the most recent Republican primary to Nate Sheets, the founder and former CEO of a raw honey company.
“The warning signs weren’t hidden,” Miller continued. “They were plain to see. Yet instead of acting to protect Texans, state leadership opened the door wide to an industry that now threatens our natural resources and infrastructure.”
In the post, Miller said he has been sounding the alarm over the boom, arguing they threaten Texas’ electric grid, water supply, family farms and ranchland.
In June, Abbott directed the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to shield residential customers from the costs of adding a nearby data center to their community, potentially raising utilities and draining resources.
“Data centers must operate in ways that reduce costs for residential electricity customers, do not drain water needed for our communities, and take into consideration the needs of our neighborhoods,” Abbott said in the directive.
But Miller isn’t having it, telling Chron.com that the governor’s announcement is political pandering.
“There’s no weight behind what he’s saying,” Miller told the online news outlet Monday. “It’s just a dog and pony show to try to get, you know, the heat off of him before, before the election.”
Indeed, top Abbott donors have ties to the data center industry.
Those include real estate titan Ed Roski, Jr., who gave $1 million to the Abbott campaign in April, and energy executive Kelcy Warren, who gave $500,000 in June. Both of their companies recently announced data center-related business deals.
Abbott also took $500,000 in donations this year from Rhett Bennett of Black Mountain, an energy company building data centers across Texas.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the tech titan and AI developer, has given $500,000 to Abbott and $5 million to the Texas GOP overall, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Musk’s company SpaceXAI is exploring a major data center expansion in Texas, according to a report released Wednesday by The Information.
“Basically he’s given a wink and a nod to his data center supporters … that … they’ve got plenty of time to get grandfathered in and get whatever they needed done, done before the legislature can pin them down,” Miller said of Abbott to Chron.com. “By the way, he’s taken several million dollars from the data center industry.”
Though lawmakers have signaled that stricter legislation is on the way for Texas’ unfettered data center boom, the 90th Texas Legislature Session won’t begin until January.
That’s why Miller has surprised political adversaries and allies alike by siding with Clayton Tucker, the progressive Democratic candidate for Texas agriculture commissioner. The two unlikely allies have appeared together at events, calling for a special session to put guardrails on what some have called the largest data center boom in the world.
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