Texas billionaire Kelcy Warren sues Beto O’Rourke over power grid claims

SAN ANTONIO (KTSA News) —  Beto O’Rourke is facing a defamation lawsuit.

The lawsuit is over claims made by the Democratic candidate for Governor of Texas about the Texas power grid. O’Rourke described the suit as “frivolous.”

The lawsuit by billionaire Kelcy Warren was recently filed in a district court in San Saba County.

Warren is the chairman and CEO of Energy Transfers Partner as well as Governor Greg Abbott’s largest campaign donor with $1 million donated in June. He also reportedly spent more than $10 million on Donald Trump’s reelection campaign in 2020.

The lawsuit focuses on claims made by O’Rourke on the campaign trail that state Warren made a profit to the tune of $2.4 billion following the historic winter storm in February 2021 and then turned around and donated $1 million from the profits to Abbott’s reelection campaign.

“Warren is alleging defamation in his lawsuit for telling the truth and connecting the dots between the profits he made, the contributions he made to Greg Abbott and the policy that has then followed,” O’Rourke said in a press conference on Monday.

O’Rourke cited recent testimony by Bill Magness, former CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, that revealed that Abbott ordered at maintaining wholesale power prices at the maximum cap over the course of the storm last February in addition to a number of headlines by media outlets that include Bloomberg, Texas Monthly, Texas Tribune, Houston Chronicle, Abilene Reporter-News,  ABC 13 and the Midland Reporter-Telegram.

Since the beginning of 2021, Greg Abbott has raised about $5.5 million. That total includes donations from at least 17 billionaires and three spouses of billionaires, according to Forbes. O’Rourke has raised $61,000 from at least two billionaires and three spouses of billionaires.