Big State, Bigger Deals: Texas Leads as America’s Home for Innovation

The Fort Worth airline and Texas-based satellite pioneer just teamed up – and consumers are the big winners

Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN, Texas – Texas has always been the home of big ideas and bigger deals. It’s where ambition meets low taxes and light regulation, where the world’s most consequential companies plant flags and make moves that reshape industries. And lately, the deals coming out of the Lone Star State have been coming fast.

Fort Worth-based American Airlines announced it has selected Starlink – the satellite internet service operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX – to provide high-speed Wi-Fi on more than 500 of its aircraft, with installations set to begin in the first quarter of 2027.

And here's the part Texans should love: this is a partnership between two companies that call Texas home.
American Airlines has been headquartered in Fort Worth for decades. And while SpaceX got its start in California, the company has increasingly planted its flag in Texas – relocating its manufacturing, testing, and launching to Starbase, Texas, and running massive operations across the state. Two Texas powerhouses, joining forces to connect the skies.

So what does it mean for the flying public?

It means faster, better, and free internet at 35,000 feet.

Starlink, widely regarded as the world's most advanced satellite constellation, uses thousands of low Earth orbit satellites to deliver internet connection capable of supporting up to 1 Gbps per antenna – enough to stream, game, hold video meetings, and scroll endlessly from gate to gate. And for members of American's AAdvantage loyalty program, the service will be free.

This is exactly the kind of thing that happens when great companies set up shop in a state that rewards ambition, rolls back red tape, and lets innovators innovate. While other states chase businesses away with high taxes and heavy-handed regulation, Texas has rolled out the welcome mat – and the results speak for themselves.

The American Airlines-Starlink deal is only the latest example. ExxonMobil, the oil and gas giant whose headquarters has been in Spring, Texas, for years, recently completed its corporate migration to the Lone Star State in full, with shareholders voting overwhelmingly to reincorporate in Texas and leave behind its legacy legal domicile in New Jersey. The vote was not close: more than 71 percent of shares voted in favor, a decisive signal that investors see real value in Texas’ legal and regulatory environment.

What made the Exxon vote particularly telling was who stood behind it. BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and other large passive asset managers voted for the move even as the two dominant proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis, recommended against it. ISS and Glass Lewis had opposed every Texas reincorporation that came before them regardless of industry, market cap, or rationale – a streak of categorical resistance that critics have called more political than analytical. The asset managers apparently reached a different conclusion. As University of Texas academic Michael Toth noted in Bloomberg Law, the outcome suggests BlackRock and its peers may have turned the page on progressive-leaning corporate activism and are voting closer to their fiduciary obligations. The proxy firms, meanwhile, may be finding that their reflexive opposition to Texas is costing them credibility with the very institutions that pay for their advice.

But here's the bigger picture worth thinking about: this could be just the beginning.

When two homegrown Texas innovators like American Airlines and Starlink start working together, the possibilities don't end with in-flight Wi-Fi. And Wall Street is paying attention. The same big-money asset managers who recognized the value of ExxonMobil’s Texas commitment – voting their shares against the proxy advisory establishment to back the move – understand that the state’s business climate is not a talking point. It is a competitive advantage. Imagine what two ambitious Texas companies might roll out down the road – new technologies, new efficiencies, and new ways to serve customers.

For travelers, the most immediate payoff is simple: fast, free Wi-Fi on American flights, beginning next year. But the bigger story is what keeps unfolding across Texas. From the skies above Fort Worth to the boardrooms of the nation’s largest corporations, the message is the same. Texas is open for business, and the deals keep getting done.