Elon Musk’s millions failed to deliver Republican wins in fierce midterms

Elon Musk spent almost $450m (£334m) – more than anyone ever has in an election cycle – to back Republican political candidates in the US midterm races. It was not enough to keep Democrats from a resounding victory.

Among the most striking wins went to Democrat James Talarico, who beat Republican Ken Paxton for a US Senate seat in Texas. Musk spent at least $45m in support of Paxton, according to a BBC analysis of campaign finance data.

Other races where Musk spent millions included Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. His spending continued into Monday, records show.

By Tuesday night, Musk seemed to admit defeat, joking on X that his “election-interfering space lasers didn’t work.”

The loss this week of so many Republican seats may have significant implications for Musk and his businesses.

SpaceX has gained an estimated $10bn in new government contracts since Trump was elected to his second non-consecutive term. Several Democratic lawmakers have said the company’s extensive and growing role in government and national security should be investigated.

SpaceX’s future development of massive data centres is also facing new potential difficulties – as are the data centre developments of other tech companies.

In Georgia for instance, where SpaceX has data centre operations, the just elected Democratic governor ran in-part on limiting the rapid rise of the massive buildings, as well as the huge tax breaks tech companies usually get to build them.

A number of other politicians ran on limiting data centres and dozens of state measures to limit their development passed on Tuesday.

Data centres are sprawling buildings that house stacks of computing hardware. Tech and artificial intelligence (AI) companies use them to run online platforms such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Musk’s X and his AI company xAI.

Musk posted to X on Tuesday that his previously floated idea to somehow build data centres in space was “looking pretty appealing right now.”

Tech companies involved in AI may be in for a tougher government scrutiny and potential regulation with Democrats in power, though any legislation would need Trump’s approval.

James Flintoft, head of investment solutions at AJ Bell, pointed to Musk’s unsuccessful spending on Republican candidates and the scale of wins by Democrats as bringing in a “period of uncertainty for investors as they assess whether tech companies are set to face greater regulation.”

Senator Ed Markey on Wednesday responded on X to a person asking if major tech industry executives would be the target of investigations, saying: “They are going to need to plant new forests for all of the subpoenas we’ll be printing.”

Tech stocks were broadly up on Wednesday morning. Yet, Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX were down by 4.9% and 3.4% respectively.

By Wednesday, Musk had stopped posting to X about politics and was instead posting in praise of GrokBot, an AI chatbot produced by xAI. It was a stark contrast to the 2025 election, when Musk would post to X sometimes hundreds of times in a day about politics.

He also unpinned a post that had been saved to the top of his X profile since last week that explained his “concern” with Democratic politicians winning more midterm races.

Those concerns included the idea that the US could welcome more immigrants, make Washington DC and Puerto Rico individual states, and expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court.

Another post telling his 241 million X followers to “Vote red today!” appeared on Wednesday to have been deleted from Musk’s profile.

The BBC has contacted SpaceX for comment about Musk’s spending and posts.

While Musk spent millions of dollars backing Republican candidates in multiple US states, a lot of his political focus seemed to be on Texas.

In recent years, Musk made the state the corporate headquarters of Tesla and SpaceX, both of which still have large operations in California where they were founded.

“There is something deeply wrong with Talarico”, Musk posted to X in October.

Talarico posted in response: “There is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator.”

Not all billionaires in the US shared Musk’s preference for Republicans.

Reid Hoffman, a tech billionaire and the founder of LinkedIn who is a major donor to Democrats, hailed the results of Tuesday’s elections as an event that “blew the doors off our expectations.”

“These elections were an overwhelming wave against Trump and his cronies,” Hoffman wrote on X and on LinkedIn. “While people like Elon are spending outrageous amounts to keep authoritarian clowns in power, those of us who believe in the ideals of America cannot yield.”

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