I encourage you to read this entire section of Ken Paxton dodging his securities fraud indictment using the full weight of the power of the offie of TX AG.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Paxton#State_securities_fr...

Then, imagine someone spending $200 million aiming to ensure his election.

Not much you can respect in that someone doing such things.

And this is only 1 bullet out of dozens more like this in the last 8 years or so. Elon was very different in the late 2000s.

Nah, listening to the stories from his first wife, he was just better at hiding it publicly.