“Executives are doing everything they can to create an environment conducive for actions they want to take, absent review or accountability from actors like our courts or legislators or others,” she says.
Since taking over X, formerly Twitter, Musk has become one of Trump’s most important allies, backing his campaign financially and lending the full weight of his own platform to promoting Trump’s talking points during the campaign. He has since sat in on meetings with foreign leaders with the president-elect, and weighed in on staffing choices for the new administration. Other tech leaders have taken note, cozying up to Trump and donating to his inauguration fund. But even before the election, other tech companies were following X’s lead in rolling back policies and protections that had previously been in place.
For his part, David Greene, senior staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that Meta and other social platforms would likely have to comply with state laws regardless of location. And relocating staff to Texas doesn’t mean all its supposed moderation problems will be fixed. Bias, he says, can cut both ways.
“Misinformation is really one of many, many, many issues that social media platforms have to deal with,” he says. “Having a moderation team in Texas might raise concerns about bias as well. For example, Texas has laws on the books that make the publication of certain information about the availability of abortion services illegal.”
But Benavidez says Texas’ social media law may not be the state’s only appeal. “Once a company is either headquartered or is doing significant business in a state, that allows them to use that state for jurisdiction in whatever future filings they have,” she says.
In 2023, X filed a lawsuit in Texas against the nonprofit watchdog Media Matters for America, alleging that the group had disparaged the company by pointing out that hate speech and disinformation on the platform ran next to ads. At the time, Texas attorney general Ken Paxton also announced his office was opening an investigation into the organization. A federal judge in Texas refused to throw out the case in August 2024. X has since changed its terms of service so that any lawsuits against the company must be brought in Texas. Federal ones must be brought in the Northern District of Texas, widely viewed as friendly to Musk’s interests. (The judge in the Media Matters case, for example, reportedly bought and sold stock in Musk’s Tesla company earlier in the year, before the suit was brought.)
Meta’s terms of service, unlike its community guidelines, so far remain the same, mandating disputes be settled either in the Northern District of California or, at the state level, in San Mateo County. But that could change.
“The legislative environment, the judicial environment, the gubernatorial environment in Texas is incredibly favorable to executives like Musk, and now Zuckerberg,” says Benavidez.
Gill posits that the regulatory environment in Texas may resemble what companies believe the national regulatory environment will come to look like under a new Trump administration.
“I think that they are looking ahead and seeing an environment that is going to be dominated by a conservative-leaning and kind of extremist administration,” she says. “So they are moving to places where that’s the norm so they can pre-comply.”
Gill also notes that Meta is facing an antitrust lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission, which a friendly administration could see fit to toss. “By preemptively making these changes that they hope will appease the administration, they may be hoping for a friendly decision in return,” she says.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
