you're seeing a boom in your state because of all things AI, data center build out, even I look what Elon's doing with SpaceX. I mean it's probably supposed to go public. This could be huge. What has this AI infrastructure build out meant for your state? And are you seeing any signs of slowdown because from the stock market standpoint, there is a little bit of concern that things are slowing down a little bit.

Look, I'll tell you, Texas is booming. and and that's not by accident. Texas uh resolves to be the best environment on planet Earth to create a business, to grow a business, a small business, a large business. You look at something like, let's take Boca Chica, which is the southern tip of Texas down by Brownsville.

So six years ago that was just an empty beach,

basically a sand dune.

SpaceX has built an entire city there. They are now manufacturing a rocket ship a month with precisions down to a 10th of a millimeter.

I can't believe these rockets are landing in the middle of the ocean somewhere.

and sometimes landing on the platform with chopsticks grabbing them out of the sky and lowering them there. That is extraordinary. And look, the reason why SpaceX came to Texas, the reason why Tesla came to Texas, the reason why Chevron left California and came to Texas. Uh the reason why AI data centers are being built all over Texas is because we want jobs. Texas is the place to build it and that result,

it's not rocket science. actually is rocket science a minute ago but

rocket science in this case, yes.

But look, how do you create an environment where you have lots of jobs? You have low and reasonable taxes, and you have reasonable and predictable regulations. You get out of the way and you let entrepreneurs build and innovate.

Do you have and it works. before you came on, you were talking to Governor uh De Santos. He was just came on. Now, he wants to regulate AI from a state level, doesn't believe it'll happen federally. Where do you stand on that?

Well, listen, we we have already done federal AI regulation. The only bill that has ever passed I wrote, and that was the take it down Act that we passed last year. So the take it down Act makes it a crime to use AI to create deep fakes of intimate images, either either naked pictures or videos, targeting real people. And this is an exploding phenomenon in particular targeting women and teenage girls.

And the take it down Act, number one makes it a felony to post non-consensual intimate images, deep fakes or real, either one.

But number two puts an obligation on the tech platform, a federal statutory obligation to remove the content. We got that done.

Um I have long been an advocate of kid's safety. There are a whole series of bills that I've introduced. So for example, the chatbot bill, which I introduced just last week, would give parents total control to supervise their kids using an AI chatbot. I will say we've seen horrible instances of chatbots urging kids to self-harm, urging kids to commit suicide, urging kids to commit mass murder. And and and that is wrong, that is abusive and and Congress needs to act. There's another bill I have, which is Kosma, the kids off social media act that bans kids under under 13 from social media, bans algorithmic boosting for kids under 17 and requires schools that are getting federal funds to block social media on campus. I think there are lots of steps at the federal level we can do.

The the key is act to protect the abuses, but at the same time, we are in a race with China to win the the race for AI.

And if we lose lose to China, it would be the most catastrophic economic decision in American history, so we can't lose.