Elon Musk Midterm Spending Fails to Deliver Republican Wins

Elon Musk’s midterm spending set a record, but it did not buy him the result he wanted. The world’s richest man spent nearly half a billion dollars to back Republican candidates, and Democrats still won control of both the Senate and the House.

Estimates of his total vary from one count to another. But all of them put it above any amount that a person has ever spent in one single election cycle.

His biggest bet was in Texas. Musk spent at least $45 million to support Republican Ken Paxton in the Senate race there, according to a BBC analysis of campaign finance records.

Paxton lost to Democrat James Talarico. It was the first time in 38 years that a Democrat won a Senate race in Texas.

Musk also spent millions on races in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Records show his spending went on right up to Monday, the day before the vote.

By Tuesday night, he seemed to accept defeat. He joked on X that his “election-interfering space lasers didn’t work.”

A personal fight in Texas

Texas was a big focus for Musk. In recent years, he moved the headquarters of both Tesla and SpaceX to the state, though both companies still have large operations in California, where they started.

In October, Musk wrote on X that there was something deeply wrong with Talarico.

Talarico hit back. He said the problem was a political system that lets one very rich man “buy his own personal US Senator.”

Quiet on politics

By Wednesday, Musk had stopped posting about politics on X. Instead, he was praising an artificial intelligence chatbot made by xAI, his AI company.

That is a big change from the 2024 and 2025 election seasons, when he sometimes posted about politics hundreds of times a day.

He also removed a post that had been pinned to the top of his profile since last week. In it, he set out his worries about Democrats winning more races. They included the possibility that the country could admit more immigrants, make Washington and Puerto Rico states, and add more justices to the Supreme Court.

Another post, telling his 241 million followers to vote Republican, appeared to have been deleted by Wednesday.

Pressure on SpaceX and data centers

Musk’s companies may now face more questions from Congress.

SpaceX has won about $10 billion in new government contracts since Trump returned to the White House, according to estimates. Several Democratic lawmakers have said the company’s large and growing role in government and national security should be investigated.

Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat, was asked on X on Wednesday whether top tech executives would be investigated. He replied that Democrats would need to “plant new forests for all of the subpoenas” they would be printing.

Any new laws would still need Trump’s signature. But Democrats in charge of congressional committees will have the power to demand documents and testimony.

Data centers are also facing new hurdles. These are huge buildings full of computer hardware that tech and artificial intelligence companies use to run their services.

In Georgia, where SpaceX operates data center operations, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms won the race for governor. She ran in part on limiting the fast spread of data centers and the large tax breaks that companies often get to build them.

Other candidates also ran on limiting the number of data centers. Dozens of state ballot measures to restrict their growth passed on Tuesday.

Musk wrote on X that his earlier idea of building data centers in space was “looking pretty appealing right now.”

Market reaction

Tech stocks were mostly higher on Wednesday morning. But Tesla Shares fell 4.9 percent, and SpaceX fell 3.4 percent.

James Flintoft, head of investment solutions at AJ Bell, said Musk’s failed spending and the scale of the Democratic wins had brought a “period of uncertainty for investors.” He said investors are trying to work out whether tech companies will face tighter rules.

The BBC said it had contacted SpaceX for comment on Musk’s spending and posts.

Billionaires on the other side

Not every billionaire backed Republicans.

Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn and a major Democratic donor, said Tuesday’s results “blew the doors off our expectations.” He called the elections a strong wave against Trump and his allies, and he criticized Musk’s huge spending.

Musk’s role in politics has shifted over the past two years. He spent heavily to help Trump win in 2024 and then led a government cost-cutting effort early in Trump’s second term, before the two men had a public falling-out. He later backed Republicans again ahead of the midterms.

Musk has not said how much more he plans to spend on politics in the future.