Elon Musk’s X account went unusually dark Tuesday evening as US election results rolled in, each new count deepening a reckoning for the world’s richest man, who poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Republican campaigns this year.
Shortly after 1 am, Musk posted twice: “Data centers in space looking pretty appealing right now,” he wrote first. About a minute later, he added, “Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn’t work this time” with a shrug emoji.
By Wednesday morning, candidates backed by Musk’s America PAC had lost 20 races and won only one, with 21 uncalled, according to a WIRED analysis of election data. Tesla and SpaceX stocks have plunged in value.
Musk and his PAC spent more than $400 million since Trump retook office backing Republican candidates—nearly $87 million of it on ads targeting 42 midterm races. He also funneled more than $229 million into other political groups, chiefly the main Republican super PACs for the House and Senate, along with smaller ones formed to fight single races in Kentucky and Texas.
Of every traceable dollar Musk put into a race that has now been decided, more than 99 cents went to a race he lost.
America PAC ran ads in seven Senate races this cycle; six have been called, and Musk’s side lost all six. Sherrod Brown took back Ohio, Abdul El-Sayed won Michigan (where the PAC spent $9.2 million on ads), Josh Turek flipped Iowa, and in Maine, Troy Jackson unseated Susan Collins, a feat Democrats had long thought impossible, ending Collins’ 30-year career in the senate. As of publication time, only Alaska remains uncalled.
America PAC did not respond to a request for comment.
Texas hosted the costliest Senate race in American history, and Musk paid for more of it than anyone. Through mid-October, Texas PAC, a group funded entirely with money he routed through the Senate Leadership Fund, had spent $148 million on the contest, nearly $79 million of it attacking Democrat James Talarico and nearly $70 million propping up Ken Paxton, the state’s scandal-plagued attorney general. America PAC added another $47 million, straight from Musk.
In October, Musk posted: “There is something deeply wrong with Talarico.” Talarico replied: “There is something deeply wrong with a political system that allows one trillionaire to buy his own personal US Senator.”
Musk’s millions were wasted: Shortly after 11 pm, the Associated Press called the race for Talarico, sealing Paxton’s defeat and opening a night in which Democrats toppled the Republican leadership in Austin that had spent years courting Musk’s companies with grants and tax breaks.
Come January, Democrats will hold sway over much of his Texas empire, including the more than $1.6 billion in tax incentives overseen by the office of ousted governor Greg Abbott—who lost to Democrat Gina Hinojosa on Tuesday night. (Nathan Johnson will also become the state’s first Democratic attorney general in decades.) Musk’s interests in Texas are exceedingly expensive, and they include a SpaceX chip plant the state valued at more than $16.8 billion, Tesla’s robotaxi fleet, and SpaceX’s Starbase launch site.
Musk’s defeat in Texas was long in the making. Lone Star Liberty PAC, which his personal trust gave $10 million, spent $6.7 million clearing Paxton’s path to the nomination. It put $3.6 million against John Cornyn, the state’s senior senator for more than two decades, and $3.1 million against Houston congressman Wesley Hunt. Hunt finished third in March, and Cornyn lost the runoff in May. By June, Musk had his nominee: Paxton, a top law enforcement official who had spent nearly a decade under indictment for securities fraud, been reported to the FBI by his own top deputies over bribery allegations, and survived an impeachment trial in the Texas Senate.
In Michigan, America PAC spent $5.5 million attacking El-Sayed and $3.7 million propping up Mike Rogers, a former congressman who had lost a Senate bid two years earlier. In the closing weeks, Rogers, Trump and vice president JD Vance each suggested El-Sayed or his family were tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. Haley Stevens, the congresswoman El-Sayed had beaten in the bitter Democratic primary, endorsed Rogers days before the vote.
The AP called the race for El-Sayed at 2:27 am. Addressing the outside money in his victory speech, he told supporters they had “built something bigger than a bank account.” On the same ballot, Michigan voters approved a measure barring political donations from utilities and large state contractors.
Musk put $10 million into Fight for Kentucky in January, a group formed to win the Republican nomination for the open seat of retiring Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. It spent $9.6 million promoting Nate Morris, who quit two weeks before his primary after Trump offered him an ambassadorship to Colombia. Andy Barr, the seven-term congressman the group had spent an additional $3.8 million attacking, won the seat by 12 points on Tuesday.
Weeks earlier, after Politico reported that Democrats were weighing investigations of his companies, Musk posted: “Those who pick fights with me should understand that I will find out who is really pulling the strings and come for them, not just their puppets.” Asked by an X user Tuesday evening when the televised trials of Big Tech executives would begin, senator Ed Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, wrote, “They are going to need to plant new forests for all the subpoenas we’ll be printing.”
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