Tech billionaire Elon Musk’s attorney John Bash is running to succeed Ken Paxton (R) as Texas’s attorney general, becoming the first candidate to throw his hat in the statewide race. 

Bash, who is a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP, said he is running because the Texas attorney general’s office is at the “forefront of all the critical legal issues facing the country, and that office should be led by the strongest possible attorney – one who is battle-tested and will be ready on Day 1.” 

“I have been the U.S. Attorney under the first Trump Administration; I clerked for Justices Scalia and Kavanaugh; I’ve handled hundreds of cases before the US Supreme Court; and I’ve represented clients facing the toughest legal challenges,” Bash said in a statement to The Hill on Wednesday. 

Paxton announced on Tuesday that he will run for Senate, challenging incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn (Texas) after signaling his willingness to primary the four-term senator for some time.

“We have another great U.S. senator, Ted Cruz, and it’s time we have another great senator that will actually stand up and fight for Republican values, fight for the values of the people of Texas, and also support Trump, Donald Trump, in the areas that he’s focused on in a very significant way. And that’s what I plan on doing,” Paxton said on Fox News. 

Bash, who was the U.S. Attorney in the Western District of Texas during Trump’s first term, is representing Musk, President Trump’s influential advisor, in a Texas defamation case. 

From 2012 to 2017, Bash served as the assistant to the Solicitor General at the Justice Department. He joined Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP in 2020, where his practice focuses on internal investigations and appellate litigation. 

Bash graduated from Harvard Law School and has clerked for ex-Supreme Court Judge Antonin Scalia.